Murder on Main Street
by HeadIntheCloudsForever
Summary: A sequel to my other story, Harvest Fest, Nancy and Frank's vacation is interrupted when a planned get away goes sour quickly following an accident, and Nancy and Frank find themselves in a race against time to solve a real murder, and a storm traps them and the other guests inside the inn...with the killer...Can they stop his next attack before they find themselves the victims?
1. Prologue: No Way Out

The Morning Killer was not his real name, no, although he wished it were. It was simply the name he had given himself after he committed his first crime at the age of fifteen when he killed the old couple at dawn on a Monday morning in September.

Now forty, he prided himself on his abilities. On the street, he could pass for anyone. No one suspected a damn thing. There was only one word to describe the sun-kissed Grecian. Where his eyes were the green of fresh dew glinting in the sunlight off a leaf of green emerald. His lips were pale and thin and his nose slender and rounded. A prominent jaw curved gracefully around and the strength of his neck showed in the twining cords of muscle that shaped his entire body; strong arms, bold thighs and calves, a firm chest and abdomen. He was an Adonis among the other men who each pale in comparison. One look and both women and men swooned at the sight of him no matter their sexual preferences and one word passed from his lips had even the straightest of men flushing shades of red that no one ever knew was naturally possible. Adonis.

Legend for people like him says their hearts died in their chest cavities long ago that they putrefied and made a heavy slime about their lungs as thick as underworld tar. That is how men like The Morning Killer became killers and why they did so. The people of the north in Massachusetts where he was originally from say his emptiness is his madness, that he takes life repeatedly as if he may possess the hearts and souls, yet never so. To be healed, someone pure has to love him, or so the rumors say, to reform his heart as if it was the finest of clay, then set it to beating with pure nature's essence. Therefore, until he could find such a being to forgive all that he has done, to break the universal scales and set The Morning Killer free to begin anew, the killing goes on. And if he was being honest with himself, he liked it. He liked it a lot.

The Morning Killer weighed the knife in his hand. It was no heavier than a kitchen blade, but would cut on first contact, even with minimum pressure. Its serrations were like waves, but not randomly, so like on the cheaper knives you could buy in a store. They would slide in smoothly and do maximum damage on the way out, like the barbs on a fishing hook. At seven inches, he could easily keep it under his jacket, not his only weapon of course, but a useful back up in close combat. For some reason, when he saw his reflection in the steel, his mind flicked to the new girl, the one younger than him by almost a decade, the pest, the detective who was a thorn in his side. Nancy, her name was, he thinks. He could see her bleeding already and the corners of his mouth twitched upward as he fought back a smile. It would be simple to kill the seller too, rather than pay for such a beautiful weapon, but what if he wanted another sometime. He dug into his pocket with scarred fingers and pulled out a wad of dollar bills. He did not need it all, but it never hurt to show a vendor you could become their best customer. Then the next time he called, his appointment would be all the faster. It was time to take care of this girl and her husband. They were getting much too close to figuring out whom he was, and he just could not risk it. Besides, those two still had to play his little game. His last little game had been fun as he strode along the busy streets, hands in his jeans pockets.

He hated it so when they died too soon, but he had to punish them. They were dirty, their ways filthy and wanton. If they refused his teachings, the Morning Killer sliced them. If they fought back, he cut even deeper, savoring their anguish in killing them slowly. He was firm and fair, they were whiny and without morals. He picked the girls for their painted lips and short skirts, he felt drawn to their high heels and long legs. They made him think bad thoughts, unclean thoughts. They made him lustful and unchaste, something within himself he despised.

The Morning Killer looked up at the old charming Victorian house, like something out of a magazine. He had passed it every day since he had started school as a kid, and to this day now that he was an adult, it still stood tall and proud, waiting for him. It was just like all the other houses on the street, but the front lawn weeds grew past his knees. If there ever was a path, it was gone, buried. The blue door had that sun-bleached look and the window frames were more bare rotting wood than white paint. He bit his lip and pondered his options. A shiver ran through his body like an electric current and the onset of the beginning light drizzling rain blurred his vision. The man waded into the late fall greenery, forcing his legs through it. Sucking in a breath as he knocked on the door, knowing there would be no answer. He twisted the handle. On crossing the threshold, the noise of the storm disappeared. There was a fire blazing lazily in the fireplace, sending its warmth out throughout the room, but he wasn't comforted by it. If anything, the man felt cold.

He turned to leave. "Don't go," said a gentle voice. "We can be such good friends." The voice, whoever it belonged to, sent a chill down his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up and a wicked sneer begin to curl on the edges of his mouth.

The Morning Killer turned around, seeing no one.

_Oh yes_, he thought, kicking aside a dust bunny. _This place will do just nicely for our next game_. It had been too long since his last game. In addition, already, the Morning Killer was looking forward to the next.

_Time to play_. _You won't win, Miss Nancy. In my game, you play by the house rules. In this game, there is no way out._


	2. Chapter 1: Surprise in the Road

Nancy Drew stood outside the deserted street during the lunch hour on a Friday afternoon, impatiently waiting for her husband. He was late, not like him. The young amateur detective caught sight of her reflection in the cafe window and was surprised at how cross she looked. Dressed in a simple but flattering brown wrap maxi dress made of cotton with long flared sleeves with a V neck that showed off her elegant neck and collarbones and a flowing comfortable skirt with a slight slit in the front, she attracted a few glances of interested men who quickly averted their gaze at seeing the fuming look in her eyes, and then caught sight of her simple yellow gold wedding band she wore proudly on her left hand, and quickly lost interest. But Nancy paid it no mind. Frank was late, so something was wrong.

_ Something must have happened_. Her arms folded across her chest, her foot tapping impatiently, she frowned, her delicate brows furrowed slightly. In agitation, she tossed her auburn red hair that in the right light looked scorching, fiery red hair that looked burning to the touch, capturing the light in vibrant ruby hues. Her hair was cut in a long bob of sorts, and fell in gentle natural waves and layers to her shoulders. Her blue eyes, normally quite expressive, the color of a clear blue sky through a broken prison wall; the color of a perfect raindrop on a blue aster, the color of a river hurrying to join the great ocean, were currently narrowed to slits, the emotions in Nancy's eyes fathoms deep, and right now, they were angry. Her blue eyes were touched by storm clouds, embracing the wind, a brief gust of wind returning to a calm sea as she sighed and felt her shoulders sag, allowing herself a minute to relax and just breathe, let it all out. She checked her cell phone for any messages. No word from Frank. It wasn't like him to be this late without calling, something must have happened. Five minutes or no, she knew her husband, and Frank was a man who prided himself on punctuality and commitment. When he made his word, he kept it. He'd asked her to meet him for lunch at Gloria's, so here she was, but no Frank.

"Frank, I swear, if this is another one of your pranks, you're _so_ dead when I get home," she muttered through clenched teeth. Nancy sighed and plopped her phone back into her purse, thinking if something was truly wrong, he would have found a way to call her somehow.

The café lay ahead, its royal blue paint glistening in the golden rays of the crisp fall day in late September. She could see the raindrops that clung, jewel-like almost, to the name of the restaurant, "Gloria's." Outside the sidewalk that will bustle in a few short hours is quiet, the concrete oblivious to whether it was midday or midnight. Her face smirked upwards at the sight of the flower planter to the right, the city of River Heights had put in new blooms that would give them flashes of sunny yellows and hot pinks, despite the fall seasons. If she stopped walking right now, the young detective in her late twenties can almost hear the heartbeat of the city. Quiet, like the ticking of an old Grandfather clock, like the one gifted to her father by the old man, Josiah Crowley, a long time ago. Though she was in no hurry and could take as long as she wanted on her lunch break at Chief McGinnis' insistence, her detective senses were buzzing, telling her something was amiss. For one, it wasn't like the chief to insist she take her time on her lunch break past the usual standard hour, and for another, Frank had been unusually excited when he called, asking his wife if she could meet him for lunch.

Naturally, she had agreed without hesitation on her part. Never one to turn down a lunch date, especially not with her husband, she walked to Gloria's, content, only half paying attention to her surroundings, lost in thought, her own world.

Nancy took a second to take a sip of her coffee in the cup. When she had arrived at work this morning, there was already a coffee on her desk. No note to let her know who the buyer was, although she could guess. One sniff had told her it was her favorite—hazelnut latte. As she stood outside the café waiting for Frank, hardly anyone else was outside and no one even looked her way or acknowledged her at all.

She turned her attention back to the cup. It's a venti, tall, frothy, and still hot. She wanted to resist it until she confirmed the giver, but without a conscious thought, it was in her hands, warming them and the first milky sip crept over her taste buds and down her throat. After only a few minutes, she was bathing in the kick of the strong caffeine. The time for finding her benefactor had passed; the first meetings of the day were scheduled to begin after her lunch break.

Therefore, she waited outside the restaurant, her purse slung over her shoulder, her coffee cup in one hand, and a copy of the chief's reports he had asked for in the other. Until it was drained, it will be within an easy arm's reach. Nancy caught sight of a dark shadow looming in front of her, someone sneaking up on her from behind. She whirled around and was given no time to react as her husband slammed his lips to hers and nearly knocked all the wind from her lungs. She hardly had a moment to react before he grinned into their kiss, simultaneously removing her coffee cup and stack of papers from her hands, setting them down on a nearby bench. Nancy grinned into their kiss as she felt her arms move of their own accord, reaching up and tangling around Frank Hardy's strong neck. This was not what she had thought would happen when he asked for 'a word,' but she certainly wasn't going to object, was she?

His lips were warm and tasted of mint; he had obviously been chewing gum earlier. His hands were wrapped around her waist, his fingers clutching her brown maxi dress tightly for support, her hands locked around his neck, pulling Frank down slightly.

When they broke apart for air, she rested her forehead against his and gathered some much needed oxygen. His little smirk told her everything and she smiled back, sinking into Frank's hold.

"You're late," she teased. "Five minutes, Frank!"

"Sorry," he grinned, not sounding sorry at all as he pulled back slightly to study her face and admire his wife's slender form in her brown maxi dress. "I just…I have a surprise for you and wanted to share it over a quick lunch. Oh, and Chief McGinnis says you're taking the rest of the day off," he laughed.

Nancy stared. The chief voluntarily giving her a day off? That didn't sound like Terry. Something was amiss. She quirked her brow her husband's way, reaching for her Styrofoam coffee cup and taking a sip as Frank gestured her towards one of the café's outside tables, sitting underneath the umbrella even though the sun had disappeared behind the clouds.

Their waitress, a shy looking girl by the name of Veronica came to take their orders after allowing them a few minutes to look over the menu. She stood with what looked like a mini touch screen computer, ready to take their orders. She asked Frank first.

"What can I get for you, honey?" she asked, not noticing the look of daggers Nancy was shooting her at the term of endearment. The girl did not seem to notice Frank's gold wedding band, or Nancy's, for that matter. Nancy sighed, shaking her head wearily. A quirk of Frank's, he could be polite to anyone, and was completely clueless at flirting, except to his wife.

"It all looks good," he joked back lightly, catching Nancy's eye and shooting a brief wink. The detective rolled her eyes but smiled, silently signaling she would let him off the hook for it. This time. "I can't decide between the toasted BLT or the ham."

The waitress smiled coyly, toying with her ponytail. Nancy frowned and folded her arms across her chest. "I'd recommend the toasted BLT, it's my favorite."

Frank flashed the younger girl a brilliant white smile, snapping his menu closed. "BLT it is then."

When Veronica turned to Nancy, the brightness in her eyes seemed to fade just a little and she frowned. "And for you?" she asked Nancy, her tone curt.

Nancy chuckled under her breath and shot her husband a look. "The toasted turkey and cheese. Pepper Jack if you have it for the cheese, please. And baked chips instead of fries, and a pickle on the side."

"You got it, ma'am," she said, not giving Nancy so much as a second glance as she deftly tapped the screen to transmit the order straight to the kitchens. Then she turned to Frank and beamed at him with the enthusiasm of someone new to the job and asked Frank if she could get them anything to drink.

"Just waters for now, thanks," he retorted.

The server gave a silent nod and sauntered off, every occasionally, she would glance back to shoot Nancy a withering look and Frank a charming little smile.

Frank shook his head in exasperation and reached for his wife's hand across the table. "Actually, I wanted to have lunch with you because I have a little bit of a surprise for you, Nan," he grinned, his smile suddenly making him look years younger. "Mohonk."

Nancy stared deep into Frank's brown eyes, hardly daring to believe. "_What_?" she asked, her voice low and barely above a whisper. "But…how? It's impossible to get reservations there! New York in the fall, everyone will be clambering for a spot there!"

Frank smiled at his wife and shook his head, passing her an envelope that was unsealed. With slightly trembling fingers from exhilaration and excitement and pulled out the reservation confirmation sheet.

She gave a tiny squeal and stood so fast from her chair she almost overturned it in her haste to scurry over to Frank and give him a quick peck on the cheek. He grinned, his cheeks red and flushed with color. "When did you do this, Frank? And…why?"

"Last month," he explained warmly, gesturing for Nancy to sit back down as their sandwiches arrived. "I'd been eyeballing it the last six months, and finally when a room opened up, I jumped on it. Got a good discounted rate too. I wanted our vacation to be a surprise though, Nan, so I paid for it out of my personal instead of our joint checking, Nance."

Nancy nodded, not even caring he hadn't told her. Ever since they had married and moved into a house, they'd combined most of their finances into a joint checking, where they paid the mortgage, bills, etc., but they each still kept a personal checking account with a debit and a credit card for their own personal expenses. Their 'fun money funds,' so to speak.

The Mohonk Mountain House was the Hudson Valley's most iconic resort in New York, the Victorian castle nestled in the Hudson Valley only 90 miles north of New York City itself. Surrounded by 40,000 acres of nothing but pristine forest, the landmark was well known for its famous cuisine and spa. Practically impossible to get on the waiting list, but somehow, Frank Hardy had made it happen for her.

Frank smiled at seeing how happy his wife was, seeing her blue eyes light up with a new intensity he hadn't seen since their wedding night. "I did it for us," he said kindly, his voice quiet and flowing through the air around them like a soft breeze. "You stay so busy at the police station; I thought you could use a break. No receptionist duties, nothing to worry about except spending a week in New York with your loving, handsome, charming husband."

Nancy nodded her agreement, taking a bite of her sandwich and allowing the sharp tang of the Pepper Jack to fill her mouth. The bread had a crunch to the crust that brought back so many good memories, and the crumb was that wholesome taste of rustic grain. In that moment of flavor, she heard her mother's voice, heard how she spoke, as if each word contained a spoon of love and laughter. Perhaps that's why they called such food 'hearty,' because it was made with such heart. This sandwich was, at least. The Pepper Jack cheese complimented her turkey sandwich, the lettuce, tomato, Dijon mustard and mayo all tingling on her taste buds, but it was the spicy cheese that stood out, having a bold flavor, not the almost-there flavor of her childhood memories, but the kind that demanded the tang of the pickle spear on her plate next to the chips. She liked it that way. It woke her brain up, made her grin within, as if it were wonderfully cheeky, a secret pleasure to savor.

"When do we leave?" she asked in between bites.

"Tonight," came Frank's reply as he munched on a fry. "I already cleared your time off with the chief, Anna's taking over for you while we're away."

"And Togo?" she asked, referring to their dog.

"At Carson's," he said, winking at Nancy as their waitress came back with their check and boxes for their leftovers. "Can you have everything packed by-"

"An hour," interjected Nancy, grinning at his bewildered expression as she dipped into her small brown crossbody purse to pull out her wallet to retrieve her debit card so she could pay for their lunch. "Remember when you returned my wallet? Bet you never imagined you'd wind up married to me, one day, did you? I certainly didn't," she asked, her eyes glazing over slightly as she shifted her little bi-fold wallet in her hands, remembering their first meeting fondly, like it was only yesterday, instead of years ago.

"How could I not?" he said incredulously, instinctively reaching for her hand as he waited for his wife to shift her purse to her other shoulder so they could walk back home, together, like always. As they walked, Frank would occasionally catch Nancy shooting him little glances, having to crane her neck upwards to look at him, given he was taller than her by a foot or two. Their marriage had been inevitable ever since Ned's passing. They were inseparable. Each was the center of the universe for the other. They were so relaxed in each other's company, so caring. Their love for one another radiated from them, touching the lives of everyone they knew. They remained devoted to each other in the two years they had been married. In the rough times, neither strayed. Though still quite young, Frank in his early thirties and Nancy now twenty-nine, when asked what the secret was to a happy marriage, the two of them would smile and say, "Good communication, never go to bed angry, and never let fun become unimportant." Sound advice. Nancy's mind drifted to thoughts of their upcoming vacation. A whole week away in New York, with no mysteries breathing down her neck, screaming for her attention. A break was just what she needed…

* * *

"Nance, slow down, you're going to kill us!" Frank lightly scolded from his place in the passenger seat of their rental car. They'd been on the road for almost thirteen hours, Nancy driving most of the way, but every once in a while they would stop at a gas station or fast food restaurant to switch drivers, letting the other rest for a few hours.

Nancy was jolted out of her daydreaming. Without awareness of the road or the rain, the car moved over the highway, lights on full beam. Nancy watched how the yellowed yet bright light played in the droplets, showing this deluge, this flood from the sky, in apparently solitary drops. She let her foot off the gas pedal and saw the speedometer creep down from sixty-five back to fifty-five. There. That should be legal. Glancing over at Frank, she saw he was white.

"Sorry, love," she apologized, shooting him a sheepish grin. "I was daydreaming, I guess."

Frank scowled, but his look was only half-serious, the other half playful. "Just try to get us to Mohonk in one piece, Nan. If you can't, let me drive," he said.

She stuck her tongue out at her husband, her knuckles almost white as she gripped the steering wheel and peered through the oncoming rain. "If the storm gets bad enough, maybe we can find a place to pull over, a little inn and wait it out, stay the night," she suggested, biting her lip coyly and shooting her husband a suggestive little wink that he grinned at, getting her hint. "Only if you want. Mr. Hardy," she joked, her tone low and husky, heavy with desire for her husband, though she was driving.

Nancy suppressed a tiny moan as she saw several orange traffic cones on the interstate up ahead. The road was closed. "We'll have to turn around; I don't think we can get this way, Frank. Can we back track to I-80 and find a motel somewhere? At least we can get off the road for the night, my legs are killing me."

"I'd like that, and—oh great," he groaned, glancing in their review mirror at the sudden red and blue flashing lights. A cop car was behind them, advancing on them. "What are you doing, Nan? Pull over," he commanded, his tone firm but not unkind.

Nancy peered at the side of the road. "I can't!" she protested. "There's no shoulder, I can't just—"

The siren behind them blared once, startling Nancy until she could see a clearing. Letting out a shaky breath, she pulled the car over and put it in park.

Luckily, for them, the rain was slowing to a mere drizzle. She watched as the cop exited from his vehicle, his eyes hidden behind large aviator sunglasses. As he approached their vehicle, Nancy could see he had all the usual height but without the bulk. He had to be pushing forty, yet he had the build of a teenager, lithe muscle underneath his uniform. He had the face of a father, one who understood Nancy's pain. Though he was one who spoke of the law, she could tell just from her inference of his appearance and the way he moved that there was a certain softness towards this man, a tone to reassure her he was on her side as he rapped on the window with his knuckles, squinting to see.

"License and registration, please, don't make me say everything twice, now, miss," came his command. Nancy obliged, digging into her purse for the required documents, passing them to the cop, whose badge read Officer Seth Jones. He seemed decent enough.

He tapped on her door, indicating he wanted her to get out. Frank shook his head slightly, signaling he would go. She opened her mouth to argue, but the cop did it again, signaling for both of them to exit the vehicle. Sighing and grabbing her purse, she stepped out of the car and towards the back of the sedan.

"Were you aware your brake light is out, Miss...Drew, is it?" Officer Seth Jones asked, peering at her over the edge of his sunglasses as he handed back Nancy her driver's license and registration card, assessing the detective's form in her simple brown wrap maxi dress that brought attention to her slender form and the vibrant rich red tones of her loose hair that cascaded in natural waves to her shoulders as Nancy took the time to put her cards back into her wallet and her wallet back into her purse. He was polite enough, but Nancy could feel his stare.

Nancy cringed as she glanced at the evidence. Sure enough, there it was, their brake light out, just as he had said. "No. I wasn't," she sighed.

"It is," he agreed tersely. "I nearly crawled up your backside so I ought to know," he jeered, glancing towards Frank. His gaze drifted downwards towards the matching gold bands on both their hands. "Ya'll married?" he asked inquisitively, seeming interested.

"Yes, sir, going on almost three years now. We'll get it fixed in New York, sir. If we ever get there," spoke up Frank, his voice guarded, on edge. He didn't trust it.

"Mmm," pondered the cop thoughtfully. "Whereabouts in New York you headed?" he asked, glancing up towards the orange roadblocks at the intersection that had been their next destination.

"Mohonk's Mountain Resort, Officer Jones," came Nancy's reply as politely as she could. "We—I missed a turn back there and now that this intersection is closed, I think we have to backtrack."

Officer Jones merely grunted in response, his hands on his hips, and one hand hovering close to his revolver. "You folks got a map?" he muttered.

"Yeah," said Frank, opening the back car door and rummaging through their luggage to find it.

The cop took a second to spread the map out onto the trunk of the tan sedan and scoffed when he glanced at the map of New York. "Old map," he murmured darkly, folding the map back up neatly and returning it to Frank. His gaze was now fixed on Nancy. "You two listen to me carefully, now you hear? You take this road—" The officer pointed, genuflecting and gesturing with his arm towards a back road, nothing more than brown dirt and harsh looking gravel that looked cracked and weathered with age. "You follow that for, oh, I don't know, five miles or so, and it should dump you back out on I-82. If you hurry, you could still make your check in time. Out of town folk like you two who don't know the area don't want to be caught in the backwoods after dark, trust me. Never know who you'll meet out here."

"What kind of people?" Frank asked, frowning.

"Inbreds," growled Officer Jones darkly, his voice sounding disgusted. "Evil type who haven't discovered the toothbrush, much less the law."

Not wanting to ignore the uneasy feeling in her gut, Nancy quickly thanked the officer for all his help, bidding him a grateful farewell as the newlyweds got back into their car. Nancy hesitated before putting the car into drive, not sure if she trusted the back way, but if it would get them to Mohonk faster…

"It's a risk we'll have to take," she muttered through gritted teeth and began the drive down the road per the cop's instructions. "Did he say five miles?"

"Yup," said Frank, his focus fixed on the road in front of them, seeing nothing but endless trees and thick brushes of woods. The officer had been right about one thing. Definitely didn't seem like the place to be caught out in after dark, that was for sure. "Keep driving, Nan, and if you get too tired, pull over and I'll take over, just say the word."

Nancy nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the road ahead. The road had lain over the earth for as long as anyone could remember, she could tell that the road wasn't frequently traveled much, the road left for nature to reclaim it in her own good time—and she had started in earnest. In the weathered cracks was gathered new soil, enough to tempt seeds to grow. Their roots grew in, their leaves a bright green over the brown and gray, the land breathing once more, healing the scars of old and making it difficult for Nancy to navigate safely, given the car constantly wanted to veer off towards the right and into a ditch.

"Nancy, look out!" shouted Frank, sounding panicked. "In the road, watch out! Veer left!"

She did so, her eyes finally falling on what Frank had spotted lying in the middle of the road, but it was too late. Nancy let out a startled cry as the tires of the car ran over something metal, the sound of the tires popping and the car lost control and veered into the ditch, the hood slightly smoking from the accident.

Resting her forehead against the wheel, her knuckles white and in a vice grip on the steering wheel to steady her nerves, she glanced over at Frank. "You okay, Frank?" she gasped out weakly.

Her husband nodded mutely, not wasting any time to exit the car and examine the contraption in the road.

"Jesus! What happened here? Nan, I can't say for sure, but I think this was deliberate!" his cry came from outside, piquing Nancy's interest, though she was finding herself filled with a sudden sense of dread. Exiting the car with shaking legs, she felt her jaw drop in horror at the steel device in the road. Whatever it was had horrible spikes on it, it looked like someone had crudely glued spikes onto a thick black rubber mat.

"Sabotage?" she asked, her voice hoarse as she reached for Frank's hand and gave it a tight squeeze.

"I don't know but whoever did this is bound to come back and see what they caught," Frank growled angrily, running his hands through his dark hair in anguish. "Grab your purse and your cell phone. Leave your overnight bag. We can come back for it later; I saw a quaint little inn back that way, on Main Street. We can walk there and call for a tow truck once we're safely inside the inn, I don't trust being out here after dark, Nan," he said gravely, heading back towards their rental car to collect his things.

As they began to walk back towards the way they had come, Nancy gripped Frank's hand tightly as her feeling of dread became almost overwhelming. She couldn't fight the coming dawn any more than she could the tides. If someone was after them, she couldn't stop what was coming more than she could call upon the clouds to clear the sky of inclement weather. Perhaps this feeling was dread, but not quite. Change was coming, she could feel it. Change or die, wasn't that the brave new world these days?

The fear sat in Nancy's chest quietly, eroding the person she was born to be. What started as a contortion of her stomach became a feeling of being smothered by an invisible hand. Her breathing became steady, deep, and then shallow. She fought it. She fought the feeling as her body writhed to be free or shut down entirely, those were her options. Each time this happened to her, part of her got stronger, learning how to cope, while the other part of her weakened. To recover, this new version of her fear needed a name, and so Nancy crowned it fear of failure. Against it, she pitted the fear of never trying, of failing through cowardice. This was how she kept moving forward, why others thought her as brave. She wasn't. Nancy just knew how to push through fear better than others…make the forwards less painful than hiding in the shadows.


	3. Chapter 2: An Interesting Welcome

The inn Frank had mentioned was not hard for them to find. On a street like Main Street, how could it?

Nancy noticed with a slight level of disdain the inn seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. "Odd," she whispered, earning a quizzical look from Frank. Ivy and ferns grew through the crevices of the old winding stone path, which led directly to the colossal structure. The place itself was a mansion, looming proudly behind creaky iron gates, flanked by rows of skeletal looking trees crowned in crimson, swaying gently to the chilly late afternoon autumn wind. At its threshold stood the delicate marble fountain, the soft gurgling of the clear water strangely melodic as it resonated in the surrounding, eerie silence. The mansion itself was long and narrow, perhaps only twelve feet wide at the front, but it stretched some thirty feet back like a giant shoe box. It was two stories high and had a one-story extension at the rear for what appeared to be the kitchen. The wooden framed sash windows were propped open with sticks. A small rose garden had been planted in the front, and although it had obviously once been carefully planted, maintained, and loved, it was now riddled with age and weeds, the flowers dying slowly.

"They look like they're open," said Frank in an optimistic tone, giving Nancy's hand a gentle squeeze. He held open the door and repressed the urge to roll his eyes as Nancy quickly dug into her purse for a little brush she kept on handy, running it quickly through her hair before stowing it back inside her bag. She grinned as he held the door open for her. "Ladies first," he said courteously. "After you. Hello?" he called out, seeing no one at the service desk. "Is there anyone here?" He practically shouted.

"Doesn't appear to be," muttered Nancy, jerking her head towards a sign left out on the front desk. Drawn in slightly crude black marker, the sign read

**_Hello Weary Traveler_**

**_Please sign in at the front desk and take a room key._**

**_Someone will be with you shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience_**.

"What kind of staff leaves the guests to fend for themselves?" demanded Frank, sounding incredulous as he shot his wife a bewildered look as she rummaged through a cabinet, picking out a set of room keys.

A new voice from the rickety looking stairwell startled the pair of them, causing Nancy to drop the keys.

"You two don't look like you own this place!" came a man's voice. "We've been waiting for two hours, and have yet to receive any kind of service in this dump!"

Nancy looked up and immediately wished she hadn't. She groaned and clutched Frank's arm tight in a vice grip as someone from her past, one who she'd hoped never to see face-to-face again descended down the stairwell, looking crisp in a black of black pants and a blue collared shirt, accentuated by a black jacket.

The man's dark hair was midnight black, cropped short, and his eyes were a dark brown, framed by thick graceful brows. His skin was tanned, his facial features quite distinctive. He had prominent cheekbones and a well-defined sharp chin and slender nose. Muscles rippled across every part of his body. Just like her last encounter, he was a seasoned detective, though Nancy wasn't so sure about the seasoned part. Tino Balducci, in her opinion, was a man who seemed to get lucky a lot. Tino's suit was cold on his waxy skin that currently looked like it was craving the sunlight. When his gaze landed on Nancy and he froze in calculating thought, he could have been one of those Madame Tussauds dummies, perfectly chiseled and cold.

Tino was a man who sought to be mysterious, elusive, and failed horribly. No man who seeks to be mysterious can truly be, there is something about wanting the attention that gives him away. Truly mysterious men have no such desire, their motives remain hidden and hence the allure. The have a standoffish quality that dares contact without inviting it. They are independent and casual, nonchalant and slow to temper, analyzing situations with ease. They are kind but do not form emotional attachments often, though when they do they can be counted on to be truly heroic. That was not Balducci.

"Well, well, Nancy Drew, as I live and breathe!" he exclaimed, not noticing the older woman descending the stairs behind him, her eyes round as a dinner plate. "And...Junior, right?" he grinned, turning to Frank, whose fists were clenching and unclenching by his sides, as if he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with them, but it was clear he was fighting back his anger. "Funny running into you two again!"

When Nancy finally found her voice, she was not surprised to hear how bitter she sounded. Whether Tino caught onto her tone of voice, she did not care.

"Hello, Tino," she moaned, closing her eyes wearily and rubbing her temples. Just being near him was giving her an insufferable headache, and she had not thought to pack any Tylenol or Ibuprofen. Like Icarus, Tino Balducci had flown too close to the sun. He had thought himself invincible until the wax melted from his wings. At first, it was drip by drip. The Chicago detective was too busy enjoying his flight to notice. Nancy guessed pride does that, blinds you to your own demise, or in this case, Tino's. Before Tino knew it, he was crashing down towards the angry sea following Lori Girard's scandal.

"Miss Drew? As in none other than Nancy Drew?" squeaked the elderly woman, speaking up at last, finally reaching the landing at last, slightly winded and out of breath. The old woman observed Nancy with the gaze of a stranger, that aloof judgment with no strings. From afar, the detective could tell she has made some opinion of her. She did not mean to think ill of the woman; she must do this, as must they all. Though humanity these days walked in a modern age, there was a part of humans that would forever be the tribal hunters. They must make an observation, a casual assessment. Friend or foe?

In this woman's case, she was deciding how to make this judgment. Clues to social class were a factor, she could tell, by the way the elderly woman was looking down her nose at Nancy's brown maxi dress and judging the brown canvas crossbody bag draped over her shoulder with an utter look of disgust present. This woman was judging Nancy's attractiveness and appearance all the way, her fitness being a key part. She could tell at the very least that the woman approved of Nancy's hair, her eyes drifting upwards and giving Nancy's shock of red hair an approving little nod.

"Yes," she answered, bewildered as she gazed at the old woman standing before her. At her age, she should have one foot in the grave. Her gait should be wonky with arthritic joints and eyesight failing rapidly. Were it not for the lines in her face, Nancy would think her sixty at most given her sharp mind and easy motion, but they were so deep and saggy—like the skin no longer had a connection to the skull underneath. In a photograph, she would have clocked the woman as ninety years old or more and she thinks that's where she was. It's her litheness and articulate speech that threw the young detective for a loop, an echo of youth in someone so old.

"Prudence Rutherford," she squeaked, her voice unusually high, not unlike nails on a chalkboard as she held out a trembling, withered hand. Nancy took it gently, feeling a genuine grin creep onto her face.

Despite her frail appearance and gentle expression, Nancy, now that she knew who this woman was, she knew what truly lay behind Prudence's facet of wrinkles. Stubborn and headstrong like that of a wild boar, with a tongue so sharp that one could be sliced in two if the woman believed you to be worth her time in the very least, let alone bothered to utter a word to you at all. In previous cases, Nancy had the misfortune of continuously falling victim to her sometimes-harsh remarks and criticisms. Always a comment here and there, about the way she walked or talked, or how she chose to spend her free time.

Prudence Rutherford wouldn't have looked out of place at a board room meeting, dressed in a casually tailored suit, and her silver hair was salon perfect, cropped short in a sleek pixie, her eyes quick to assess her surroundings. The old woman had the air of one used to punctual service, her face poised to give her order and her manicured hand was already reaching into her leather handbag for her phone.

"Still no service," she grumbled. "I've been trying to call for help for hours. We had car trouble."

"You too?" asked Tino, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "So did we. This can't be a coincidence. I think someone deliberately trashed our car."

"Yes," Nancy offered, not sure of the dark glance exchanged between Prudence and Tino. "Spikes in the road," she mumbled, glancing around the inn for any sign of the owners. "Are the owners here, Tino?"

"We don't know," interrupted Prudence, her squeaky voice like nails on a chalkboard. Tino cringed, and either Prudence missed it or did not care what he thought of her. "I've been ringing the bell, but no one's come. We thought when you and…" The elderly woman turned to Frank. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

"Frank Hardy, Nancy's husband, ma'am," said Frank quickly, offering her his hand. When she did not take it, merely looked down her nose at him, his charming smile faltered and he took a step back, falling back into place next to Nancy. "What kind of inn leaves the guests to fend for themselves, that's what I'd like to know," he grumbled, looking thoroughly cross.

It did not escape Nancy's attention that Tino's gaze was lingering a little too long on her, longer than she would have liked, eyeing her form in her dress with almost hungry eyes. She could feel the tension in the air as Frank saw this and glowered at the detective.

Tino rolled his eyes and helped himself to a pitcher of water, pouring himself a glass. "Well, in any case, we're here, and since you two are here too, now, you might as well pick out a room. I would recommend room number 4, it has a great view of the gardens in back, very scenic. I've got 5," he said cordially, raising the glass of water to his lips and drinking.

"Mr. Balducci, that isn't ours!" Prudence spoke up haughtily, which the senior detective ignored.

Frank and Nancy shot each other a quizzical look.

_These two seem to have issues of their own_, Nancy thought, chuckling lightly to herself as she shifted her purse to her left shoulder and took in the rest of the inn, smiling as she turned away so they would not see her laughing as their raging insults pierced the otherwise silent inn. _Where are the owners? _

One glance out the window was more than enough for the amateur detective to know the two of them weren't going anywhere, at least for the next several hours. They would be spending the night here. Black clouds sprawled across the sky, billowing in from the west. Their brassy glare drained color from the trees, leaving them tinted bronze in the faltering light. The air seemed to grow heavy and humidity pressed down, suffocating, the scent of rain dark and heady. A stillness seemed to fall over Main Street, and in the silence came the low crack of thunder, rolling across the inn's rooftop to the pattering of tiny raindrops.

For a moment, everything stopped. Even the wind held its breath. A streak of hot silver split the sky, and then the downpour began. In the other room, she could hear Prudence let out a yelp and Tino scolding her. Nancy ran her hands along the flowered wallpaper of the living room. In the dark room, even the ticking of the clock nearby had a relaxed feeling, as if it was a heartbeat at rest. If Bess were here, she would have found it frightening, but to Nancy, it was relaxing. She felt as if the air moved like cool water and the aroma of the nearby-lit pumpkin spice candles infused her far more deeply than it did in the light of daytime. In the twilight, the fabrics were muted hues, as if they too awaited the dawn to ignite their colors for all to see. Not quite the hot dark of embers, but a soft, hopeful dark. The dark that came just before the sunrise, a kind of dark that helped the orange and gold blossom across the sky like a flower blooming in spring. All throughout Nancy's life, she was told the darkness 'presses in,' but she knew that it did not. The darkness kissed up to your skin closer than a mother and whispered excitement into her ears. The darkness was her best friend (aside from Frank!), funny and glib, flattering and cool, or so she thought. The darkness would be her favorite thing right up until her exists were blocked, then it had no reason to hide. If it was easy to spot darkness, there wouldn't be a problem, how often are you confused with the day and night? Nancy knew that if she didn't understand her own emotions and motivations, she wouldn't be able to help herself.

What did she fear? She didn't really know, but once she figured it out for herself, she'd be able to unlock her own cage and step into the light, once and for all.

Nancy absentmindedly wandered into the dining room, it had once been an impressive dining room, but years of neglect seemed to have taken their toll.

The table was long and solid wood, made of railway sleepers that had been stolen in the dead of night, then sanded and polished to hide their true origins. It stood like some medieval banqueting table in the middle of the room. The once crisp flowered wallpaper was torn in some places. On the walls were gilded mirrors, but the frames were dusty and the dim candle light that shone off them showed years of flecks of dirt and food that was never polished off. The floor at first glance appeared to be mud, but it was made of large terracotta flagstones covered in grime. Above the table hung an old wrought iron candelabra with several black wicked candles in it currently aged and burned to nothing but stumps.

A voice that did not belong to Frank, Prudence, or Tino spoke up behind Nancy, startling her. A chill ran through her spine, making her shudder, as a freezing cold wind would wake someone. Her blood ran cold and a bead of sweat dripped down her face.

"What are you doing in my dining room?"


	4. Chapter 3: The Hosts

It was the kind of scream that made Frank Hardy's blood run cold. It echoed through the house, making its origin hard to pinpoint, but eventually he figured it was coming from the dining room. "Nancy!" he shouted. Her scream pierced his brain and ignited some primeval pathway. Adrenaline surged his veins as his fight or flight kicked in as he bolted towards the dining room. He skidded to a halt as he practically bowled his wife over in his haste to reach her. "Are you okay? Nan? Nance?" he demanded, seeing her white face. The chandelier in the dining room was lit, hanging from the dining room ceiling like the bejeweled corpse of a giant spider. The uncoordinated colors of the fake gems struggled to reflect the weak of the dining room, partly because of the plastic had been so roughly cut and partly because they were coated with a thick layer of dust. It was about as tasteful as a neon overcoat, but thankfully not so bright. "Nancy, answer me!"

"I'm good," she managed weakly, visibly cringing, as she looked towards the new arrival, a woman.

The new woman standing in front of Nancy and Frank held her hands over her hands, a grimace on her face at how loud Nancy's scream had been.

"Screaming like that we save for the outdoors," she grumbled darkly, a rolling pin in her hands.

Nancy was too rattled to even offer a comment. As she glanced towards the woman, she hated to even think it, but this woman seemed rather unpleasant. She was not overly old, but her body had aged past her years that she wore the wizened features of an old crone. The occasional strand of her once golden hair could still be seen through the lifeless gray mane that limply framed her aging face, though not for long as she gathered it into a loose bun and secured it with a comb. Her forehead was wrinkled by many peaks and trenches—caused by years of consistent scowling—which unflatteringly crowned eyes that permanently harbored a disdainful glare, shadowing their beautifully unique shade of blue. Her entire face seemed drained of any signs of joy and amusement, instead her frumpy cheeks told a tale of regular displeasure and disdain for life.

"My—my apologies, ma'am," gasped Nancy weakly, her face still drained of color and ashen looking. "You startled me, I—I didn't mean to scream in your ears!"

Prudence and Tino poked their heads around the corner, both of them looking disgruntled and annoyed at the ruckus. "Oh, finally, someone of authority in this place!" sighed Prudence, relieved, striding over to the new woman, her hand outstretched. "Ma'am, are you the owner here?"

The middle-aged woman, seeming to be in her late fifties, quirked her brow Tino's way. "That I am, name's Alice Jameson, husband's around somewhere, so is my son, probably upstairs," she said, her voice low but gruff. "And you're the fellow that helped himself to Room 5." She turned to Frank. "Or was that you?" she inquired quizzically, curious.

"No, that was me," interrupted Tino, annoyed.

The woman who called herself Alice glanced back and forth between Tino and Prudence a few times, her eyebrows raised suspiciously. She snorted and rolled her eyes, glancing back towards the dining table, and her hands on her hips, her simple blue housedress neat and crisp. "Didn't peg you as the type to get it hard for someone so old, boy," she cackled wickedly, not noticing Tino's cheeks flush red with anger, and Prudence's eyes flash dangerously and narrow until they were mere slits.

Frank choked on the water he'd been sipping on, violently coughing to disguise his laughter.

Nancy, sensing danger, decided to step in before things could get out of hand, which they very well could if she did not do something, and fast.

"Miss Alice, my name is Nancy, Nancy Drew, and this is my husband, Frank Hardy," she added, her gaze flitting towards Frank before landing back on Alice again. "We've had some car trouble, I'm afraid, and our cell phones don't have service here. Would you happen to have a landline phone we could use to call a tow truck? We were hoping to be on the road again soon, but judging by the looks of the storm outside, I don't see that happening, so we're staying the night."

Alice fixed Nancy with a cold stare. "You paying for it?" she asked, her tone slightly jarring, even petulant. "We don't have one of those card machines. Only take cash," she said coldly, her tone slightly hostile.

"Of course," murmured Nancy, surprised at the sudden hostility in their host. _Who IS this woman?_ Nancy wondered, not sure if she should be insulted at the woman's rudeness or amused. _She's so rude!_

"Then enjoy it, but keep the noise down." She turned back to the table, seeming to scrutinize it. Alice clucked her tongue in disapproval and turned back to Nancy, gesturing to Frank with a jerk of her head. "Your husband, can he carry chairs?" she asked.

Nancy stared incredulously at the woman. She was quite a character, the detective would give her that much. Judging by the looks on Prudence and Tino's faces, it was evident they thought as much too.

"Yes," she mumbled, glancing up at Frank, whose face remained politely impassive, but his eyes betrayed him. He was silently fuming in his anger.

"Good," she snapped, turning her attentions towards Frank, whose posture stiffened and became rigid. "Then we're going to need three more," she said.

Frank nodded, not wanting to argue with this woman. Nancy decided to follow Alice as the innkeeper sauntered back towards the kitchen. She watched as the older woman opened the oven door, and the enticing smell of a roast cooking in the oven wafted through the air, filling her nostrils. Nancy's stomach growled and she began to feel a sinking emptiness in the pit of her stomach. She had not realized how hungry she was until she smelled it.

"Meat's almost done," commented Alice, not bothering to glance Nancy's way. She jerked her head towards the pantry nearby. "Better get the food on the table. You, there's a jar of applesauce in the kitchens." She turned towards Prudence, who was looking beside herself at being asked to be put to work. "Can you carry plates, Mrs. Rutherford?"

"Yes," snapped Prudence harshly, wrenching open up a nearby cabinet door with perhaps more force than was necessary, taking out seven place settings. "None of the glasses match though," she grumbled.

Turning away, Nancy rolled her eyes, not pretending to care. Finally, she had to say something. It was just getting to be too much, all of this was. "We're eating and we have a place to spend the night, safe from the storm. Try not to let it get to you, Prudence, please."

Prudence looked as though Nancy had slapped her. "The _audacity_!" she exclaimed, but turned her chin slightly upward and stormed off towards the dining room without so much as another word to Nancy.

Shaking her head at Prudence's antics, Nancy ventured towards the pantry to fetch a jar of applesauce at Alice's request, hearing the sounds of Tino and Frank in the dining room, conversing in low enough tones that she couldn't make any of it out. Every once in a while, while she scooped out the applesauce into a serving bowl, she threw a side-glance at the odd owner of the inn, studying Alice Jameson's moves, how she walked with an odd gait.

Nancy took her time spooning out the applesauce, wondering how the men were faring, and was jolted out of her musings when Alice wordlessly handed the detective a basket of rolls. "Here," she snapped. "Put those on the table, and then come back for the rest."

She sighed, tossing her hair back over her shoulders as she passed Prudence on the way to the dining room, where Frank and Tino lingered, talking amongst themselves about their strange hostess.

"Doesn't she strike you as odd?" smirked Tino, glancing at Nancy as he noticed her arrival with the rolls. Nancy had to nudge aside a few plates and glasses in order to make room for the rolls. With the basket of rolls, two pitchers of water, a soon to arrive platter of roast beef, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, applesauce, brownies for desert, condiments, plates, silverware and glasses, the table quickly shifted from intimate and cozy to crowded and packed. Too much. They were out of room.

"You're the detective, Balducci, you tell me," retorted Frank hotly, his disdain for Tino quite evident judging by his tone of voice. Nancy knew Frank still had not quite forgiven him for blowing him and Joe's efforts off when they were in Copper Gorge, Colorado, or trying to take credit for solving the case. "If I had her people skills, if this family is indeed the ones who put those spikes in the road, I'd probably have no other choice _but_ to put spikes in the road to bring in business," he muttered sardonically, leaving Nancy alone as she tried her best to re arrange the table and make more room for the incoming food.

Nancy sighed exasperatedly, deeming the effort a lost cause. She turned and let out a tiny shriek, fumbling the basket of rolls and the man sitting at the table in front of her caught it before it could fall to the floor.

She stared, hardly daring to believe it. "_Sonny_?" she squeaked, feeling her eyes grow as wide and round as a dinner plate. "What on earth are you doing here?" she asked, not waiting to envelop the eccentric man in a hug. He grinned in that infectious way of his that she could not help but return it, despite how frazzled and frayed her nerves were.

Sonny Joon's short haircut was an act of defiance against society itself. Cropped short and close, it was dyed several shades of purple and blue, sticking up in tufts and seeming to have a mind of its own, his purple rim glasses showcasing his light hazel eyes. Nancy could tell he was a city boy all the way, judging by the fact she could smell the hair product from the other side of the room, and by his collared blue shirt and stylish skinny jeans, his black boots neat and polished despite the storm outside.

"How long have you been here? When did you get here?" she asked, looking around the inn in amazement. She'd not heard anyone else come in.

"Since yesterday," he grinned. "Car troubles."

"You too?" she squeaked, her senses buzzing like a hive of bees. "So were ours, and Tino's. I don't know if Prudence came in her car or was riding with Tino, but Sonny, I don't think this is just a coincidence."

Sonny's expression was grave, most unusual for him, but she did not have time to dwell on it as her name was being called. Frank was looking for her, and apparently, so was Alice Jameson. She sighed, giving a tiny wave that Joon returned, still smiling at her.

"Meat's ready, everyone!" came Alice's harsh bark. "Everybody go wash up then come to the table!"

Prudence gave a sniff of disapproval. _Perfect_, she thought to herself as she gave Nancy and her husband a quick once-over. _Everybody handle the food and dishes and then wash up. All that dust! Who does this woman think she is? What kind of place is she running? No inn I know puts guests to work! _

The others went up to their room to wash. Prudence spotted a quaint little bathroom across the hall and thought that more appropriate and more pleasing to her joints since she wouldn't have to climb the stairs. _Amazing_ _how people so inept at hospitality and so rude can manage to maintain such a lovely facility. For their stupidity, I would not even give this place five stars, let alone one_, she thought to herself as she entered the bathroom, flicking on the light. The bathroom could only be described as somewhat dilapidated. The Formica peeled from the vanities and the enamel was chipped in the sink. Water leaked from the base of the faucet when it was in use, but it was scrupulously clean, the old tarnished mirror sparkling in the light from the light bulb above, and the bath, though also chipped, was as brilliant white as any showroom. The towels were fragrant, fluffy and pink, carefully folded on a chair in the corner. As she splashed cold water on her face, she felt her muscles relax and tension ease.

"You done yet, you old witch?" growled a man's voice, gruff and unpleasant. The man's voice was deep, whenever he spoke, every head in the room would turn. This man had that kind of rich, silky voice. He spoke as if he controlled the world, his experience seeping through. He would remind you of a storm.

_A bad one_, ruminated Prudence as she glanced up, taking her time using one of the hand towels to dry her face, never once taking her eyes off the new arrival. "Yes," she snapped coldly, choosing to ignore his insult for now tossing the towel towards him. The man caught it in mid-air, unimpressed. "Why don't you try making yourself presentable?" she sneered, crinkling her nose in disgust as his disheveled appearance. "You have guests, sir. Clean up!"

The man was older, probably around the other woman, Alice's age, dirt literally smeared across his cheek and forehead, something black like oil staining his fingertips, his forehead shiny and gleaming with sweat. His t-shirt and jeans caked with dried mud; there was never a moment when dust wasn't covering this man. And he seemed to be okay with it.

The man sneered at her as she left, feeling his gaze practically scorching a hole in the back of her skull. When he laughed, it sent a tremor down her spine and almost made her heart stop there on the spot.

His laugh was bitter, devoid of emotion, and cold. Perhaps for the first time in her life, Prudence wondered what she had gotten herself into. The fear traveled in Prudence's veins but never made it to her facial muscles or her skin. Her complexion remained pale, her eyes as steady as if she were shopping. She let out an understated sigh and turned to leave, showing the crude, boorish pig that dared to call himself a man she wasn't afraid to turn her back.


	5. Chapter 4: Surprise at Dinner

A heavy silence settled over the dining room as Alice herded the guests into the dining room, thicker than the uneasy tension in the atmosphere. Unsettled glances from Tino, Prudence, Sonny, and Frank and Nancy were unceremoniously passed around, trying to avoid catching the glances from the other members of Alice's family that passed by. Alice attempted to make light of the delay as dinner started, waiting on her partner as her husband finally came into the room, taking his seat at the head of the table, wiping his hands on a white handkerchief that was becoming noticeably filthier by the moment, stained black with grime and filth from his nails. "You get stuck on the old commode, Todd, or did you fall in? We're always waiting on you, Todd!"

It did not escape Nancy or Frank's attentions that the man called Todd shot Prudence Rutherford a filthy look. Exchanging a look of understanding, they both made a mental note to ask Prudence about it later. Apparently those two had already met.

The man seemingly called Todd Jameson merely grunted in response, hitching up his overalls and taking a seat. His dirty blond hair was cropped short, tousled, and he smelled of sweat and oil, grimy and dirty. Perhaps he'd been working in a garage outside, but still, he could have at least made an effort to clean up before joining his family and their guests to share a meal with them. It was common courtesy.

Frank decided to question him, just to see if this guy talked. "So you're Todd?" he asked, forcing a smile on his face that didn't reach his eyes. "My name's Frank, and this is my wife, Nancy," he added, gesturing to Nancy.

Todd Jameson nodded. "Who're you lot? What are you doing here, if I might ask?" he growled. His voice had a husky drawl, and every step he had taken towards the dining room table was in slow motion, compared to anyone else Frank had ever known. Todd Jameson's idea of hurrying was to bend his head downward a little as he sauntered, no, scratch that—swaggered—the pace of his footfalls not changing one iota. That's just the way he was.

_I wonder if folks like these were the type that cop warned us about. Rednecks_, Nancy thought, and immediately felt guilty for thinking it. As an amateur detective, she tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they had given her a reason to think of them otherwise, but first impressions truly mattered, and right now, her impression of the Jameson family was not a favorable one at all.

Nancy felt her mouth fall open slightly and Frank's hand drifted to her lap, settling over her hand, silently warning her not to do it.

She glanced around at Tino, Prudence, and Sonny, all sitting waiting, acting like polite adults. This night just continued to get stranger and stranger, didn't it? First all their cars rendered useless by mysterious spikes in the road, left by a person or persons unknown, and now their hosts were an odd lot. Prudence and Tino shifted uncomfortably in their seats, and Frank and Nancy grasped each other's hands in the table, shuffling their feet and Nancy dared to lift her chin to get a good enough look at Alice Jameson's husband and her adult son. It was the son she was drawn to the most, the one that intrigued her.

Since the son had arrived at the table, he'd not spoken a word, but he'd taken to staring at Nancy in a way that made her feel uneasy.

Her first impression of the man was that the Jameson adult son reminded her of the elusive Boo Radley in one of her favorite books, _To Kill a Mockingbird_, and the movie. Under the light of the chandelier, his white-blond hair shined whiter than a new page, only the sallow light from the chandelier gave it a golden hue. The man's skin was almost vampire-esque white and almost transparent that you could trace his blood veins right through, a shocking contrast against his black polo shirt and black pants. His pink eyes were so at home without the sharp light of the day.

The poor man looked like he'd grown up in a laboratory somewhere rather as a child playing in the sun. In a way, Nancy wondered if her guess about the albino was correct.

He looked at her, his eyes seeming to tell her the truth. _I never did play in the sun; the moonlight had to always be enough for me_.

The silence was finally lifted as Alice took her place in between Todd and the son, whose name the group had yet to learn. "Help yourself to the food and pass it along."

Frank held the platter of roast beef steady as Nancy pierced two pieces and put one each on her plate and Frank's, before passing the plate along to Prudence, who in return was passing around the mashed potatoes and the rolls. Once the food had made the rounds, Nancy had to admit the food certainly looked appetizing and smelled great.

"Well?" challenged Alice, sounding a little annoyed after everyone had his or her plates fixed. "Am I talking to myself or are you all sitting there? This is a time for conversation, so you lot start telling me about yourselves, go on." She was nothing if not blunt. Nancy would give her that, if nothing else, at least.

The corners of her mouth tugging as she fought back a smile, Nancy jumped at the chance to start a conversation, perhaps that would make things less awkward and they could get through this dinner in one piece.

"I'd be delighted to," she chirped happily, noticing Prudence roll her eyes. "My name's Nancy, and this is my husband, Frank, and we're detectives back in Illinois, ma'am."

"I suppose you're on the news," responded Alice, sounding bored and unimpressed.

Nancy said no, then immediately wished she hadn't. "But maybe someday, we will be." The detective once again found her gaze drifting towards the albino, realizing she was staring, but she couldn't seem to help it. She was drawn to the man in an eerie sort of way.

Alice seemed to notice where she was looking and chuckled. "I see you've met my son, Dan."

Nancy stared. "I—it's a nice name," she stammered, finally tearing away her gaze long enough from Alice's son to try the mashed potatoes. Creamy, buttery, and rich, the way she liked them. And the crescent rolls, light golden and slightly crispy on the outside, baked to perfection. The roast beef was tender, the juices filling her mouth as she took a bite. One thing was certain. Their hosts might not have much in the way of social grace or etiquette, but Alice knew how to cook a meal.

"Are you married?" Dan's first words at the table. His gaze was fixated on Nancy, and he seemed not to notice the yellow gold band on her finger, or the way Frank's hand drifted protectively and landed on Nancy's shoulder.

"I am," she responded, trying to keep her voice calm and neutral, turning her attention away from the albino man who was continuing to give her a bad case of the creeps, hoping to steer the conversation away from her marriage. "Anyways, Mrs. Jameson, we've all had some car trouble, a—and we'd really appreciate the use of your telephone at the earliest opportunity, given our cell phones still have no service thanks to this storm, and I don't think the cab companies will send out their drivers in inclement weather like this."

"Don't have none," spoke up Todd gruffly, his dark eyes narrowing to mere slits as he glared at Nancy, his fork raised in the air as he chewed his bite of roast beef slowly, taking his time chewing before swallowing and answering. "Don't need no telephones here. We got everything we could ever need, miss."

"What in the _world_?" spoke up Prudence, sounding thoroughly indignant. "How do you expect to maintain a proper business then without any form of modern communication? What if—what if the power goes out, then what do you do if you can't call anyone?"

"Wait for the guests to leave," answered Todd.

Tino sighed and buried his face in his hands, pushing aside his plate, his food practically untouched. When he spoke, his voice was clipped and hard, on the verge of having a breakdown. "So then let's talk about the spikes in the road, and the fact that we all seemed to have car trouble. Quite convenient for your family, isn't it? Run down inn in the middle of nowhere, one hell of a way to bring in business, don't you think? Did you do it?"

"Nope," retorted Todd simply, though his eyes seemed to darken in color, he was growing so upset. His fork was clenched tightly in his palm, almost hard enough to break the metal if he was of a mind to do such a thing. Nancy dared to look into Todd Jameson's eyes, but it was like there was nothing there to behold. Black eyes, an endless depth of ink, anger, and unspoken pain. She could not see the whites of his eyes nor the vessels that flowed through them. They were the depths of Tatarus holding a thousand souls, yet there was none to be seen. His eyes were soulless.

Tino was entering into a tirade now, his face flushing red with anger as his entire body trembled, struggling to control his temper. "And while I'm on the subject of our cars, let's talk about the vehicles! Strange that neither you nor Alice will say a word about the spikes in the road, or offer a way for us to get help if you don't have a phone we can use! And don't even get me started on your despicable service! What kind of place are you running here, putting your paying guests to work?" he bellowed, clutching his water glass in his hands, mostly as a means of occupying his hands, lest his fists start flying in a rage.

The atmosphere in the room was becoming tenser as the seconds passed, the temperature in the room seeming to drop ten degrees colder. Nancy's gaze flitted from Todd's to Tino's worriedly, hoping a fight wouldn't break out, but it seemed inevitable that it would.

"You think you can come into my house, use our bathrooms, drink our water, eat our food! You watch your mouth, young man!" Todd bellowed, his face almost purpling with anger.

"Am I a paying guest here, or aren't I?" shouted Tino, balling his hands into fists and rising from his chair, Todd mimicking his movements. "Who do you think the water and food and bathrooms are for if not your guests? Who the hell do you think you people are?"

Prudence let out a sudden shriek that pierced the air, like nails on a chalkboard. She shoved her plate away; her hands over her mouth and her face turned an interesting shade of green. She looked like she was about to be sick.

Tino turned on Prudence, seemingly glad to find another thing wrong to accuse the inn owners. "What is it?" he asked eagerly. "What did you find?" he demanded, glancing at her plate.

Nancy craned forward in her seat to get a closer look. Bugs were swarming around her pile of potatoes and her chunk of roast beef.

"E—excuse me, I—I have to go," Nancy mumbled, feeling her stomach lurch as she bolted from her chair, overturning her chair in her haste to reach the bathroom. She barely made it to the sink before her stomach contracted violently, the congealed contents of her stomach emerging in the dim light, nothing digested since the evening before. Acidic bile lingered in her mouth, burning her throat as she rinsed her mouth out with the water from the faucet, her knuckles griping the edge of the basin to steady herself.

"Nan?" came Frank's voice from outside, sounding worried. "You okay, Nance?"

Wrenching open the door, she wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, still trembling. She reached out for Frank, who took one look at her pale, drawn face and gripped her arm tightly, guiding her towards one of the stairs leading up to the bedrooms to sit down. "We can't stay here, Frank," she pleaded weakly. "Let's get out of here!"

Nancy felt the onset of a panic attack coming, her breathing becoming short, ragged gasps as she struggled to breathe air into her lungs that simply didn't seem to be there. She was rushed outside into the freezing cold air. She couldn't breathe. Everything around her was spinning and it felt as if the ground were melting beneath her sandals. Nancy collapsed onto her hands and knees, only vaguely aware of Frank saying something, but he sounded distant and muffled. Her stomach lurched again and she fought back the urge to vomit.

Weakly, Nancy lifted her head, sinking into Frank's hold as he gingerly rubbed her back, trying to focus her gaze a few feet in front of herself as she tried to quell the nausea in her stomach, only to come across a shrouded figure in black, wearing some kind of trench coat and holding a long shotgun. Whoever the person was wore a horrible looking mask, hiding his or her face from them.

"Shit!" swore Frank, wrenching Nancy to her feet violently and steering her back towards the house as the shotgun barrel swung forward, and a few warning shots were fired, one of the bullets taking out a window, the other narrowly grazing Frank's ear and missing it by only a fraction of an inch.

Alice's wide-eyed stare in the doorway told them everything they needed to know. They were trapped. "Quick!" she hissed through clenched teeth, ushering Nancy and Frank inside. "Get inside! It's _him_!"


	6. Chapter 5: Alive Inside

Nancy was given no chance to ask the dozen questions that were burning on the tip of her tongue as Alice slammed the door shut, locking it with a deadbolt. For just a moment in the fading light, Nancy could see the briefest flickers of fear and anger pass through the woman's orbs.

"Turn the lights off!" she whisper hissed, wasting no time as she scurried through the dining room, promptly shutting off the lights and blowing out the candles. "Quickly now, don't want him to see us!"

"Who is he?" questioned Nancy gently, in spite of the fear that was pricking her heart and working its way up into her throat. "Alice, you speak as though you know this man. Who is he and what does he want?"

Alice ignored the detective's questioning, leaned forward into Todd's ear, and whispered something. Nancy could just barely see Dan's outline lurking in the living room shadows, shrouded in darkness.

Todd had opened his mouth and had been about to reply, when the sound of a rattling doorknob towards the front entrance could be heard. Tino, Frank, and Todd all looked at each other, horrified and confused.

"The door!" exclaimed Tino violently, wasting no time in bolting for the door, Todd and Frank right at his heels. The Chicago detective jiggled the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge. He swore under his breath and bit his tongue. "Damn! He did something to the door, you guys! I—I think we're trapped in here."

"No shit, Sherlock," growled Todd, his black eyes flashing angrily. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he glanced upwards, the sound of footsteps on the rooftop. "What the hell?" he demanded, irately now.

"He's on the roof!" whispered Frank, desperately searching for a way out. "Alice, Todd, are there any other windows, other places he could get inside?"

"Who said anything about getting inside?" snapped Alice, glowering at Frank, her arms folded across her thick chest. "That's not his way. He wants to keep us _in_," she exclaimed, turning to her husband and giving a curt nod that all of them noticed at once.

"Who is this man? Why don't we just ask him who he is and what he wants?" squeaked Prudence, wringing her manicured hands painfully together, smoothing her hair, as if somehow reassuring herself that despite their high tension situation, as long as she still looked put together, the socialite would be fine.

"I don't think he's a law officer," retorted Tino, jerking his thumb back towards the front door where the doorknob had fallen off after Tino had fiddled with it, trying to open it. "The spikes in the road were no mere coincidence. Whoever he is, I think he did it. But if you want to open the door and ask who the hell he is and what he's doing here, be my guest. His answer will most likely be a shotgun shell to your face," he snapped angrily, earning a dark look from Prudence, but for the moment, she didn't comment.

Nancy decided it was time for some answers at last.

"Who is he, Alice?" she prodded; doing her best to ensure her voice remained calm and un-accusing. "You spoke as though you know this man. If you know who he is and what he wants, we deserve to know the truth, especially if he means to harm us."

Alice fell silent and regarded the detective for a moment, the candle she was holding flickering in the otherwise impenetrable darkness, illuminating half her face, the other half-shrouded in the shadows.

"So you want to know who he is?" she asked after a silence that lasted entirely too long. "Follow me," she instructed, gesturing to the others to follow her with a flick of her wrist as she held out the candle in front of her, using what limited light it provided to let it guide her way until she came to what appeared to be an office, a single writing desk tucked away in a corner. She took a moment to light another candle and set it on a nearby windowsill, and stepped back to admire her handiwork plastered on the wall.

Nancy had to squint to see, and once she realized what the newspaper clippings on the wall were, she froze and instinctively reached for Frank. "Oh my God," she whispered, horrified, a hand over her mouth. Entire articles and clippings had been pasted to one side of the wall, detailing a string of gruesome murders, each one more devastating than the last.

Alice sighed wearily, sounding exhausted. "It's been going on for a while now. We call him The Morning Killer, after the first couple he took down. Killed them in their houses at dawn, their poor bodies mutilated tremendously, beyond anything you can imagine, girl. Cops are still trying to figure out whom this person is, no one knows his name. Never leaves behind any evidence, other than the bodies, and by the time the police find the corpses, they been dead so long that it's hard to tell how it happened."

Todd spoke up, lingering in the doorway of their office, a sneer on his face, no emotions readable in his black eyes. "He's been hanging round these parts a while now. We were wondering when he'd get along to us." He glowered at Nancy and Frank, then Tino. "We was doing just fine till you folks came along."

Frank felt his cheeks flush red with anger and stepped in front of Nancy, one arm held out in front of Nancy, preventing her from taking another step forward towards Todd or Dan, still hiding in the corner. "You—" But he didn't get a chance to answer as the sound of something clanking and rattling seemed to be coming from the living room's fireplace.

Prudence let out a shriek and collapsed onto the sofa, screaming as whatever it was finally came tumbling out of the fireplace, covered in soot.

"What—what is it?" she gasped weakly. "Oh, don't touch it, Miss Drew; it might be a spring-loaded trap!"

Nancy knelt, squatting on the floor and frowned as she picked up an old soup can with the label torn off. Whoever the man was, he had scrawled them a message in permanent black marker on the can.

"It's a message," she said shakily, turning the can over in her palm as she read it. With slightly trembling hands, she read the message aloud. "You're in my house now. Welcome to my house. These are the house rules. Follow and you may live."

"Oh, God," moaned Prudence, her voice faint and her face ashen and beaded with clammy sweat. "What—"

"Shush," commanded Tino sternly. "Let her finish it."

Nancy took a deep shaking breath, continuing, her hands barely managing to hold the can steady, she was trembling so hard. "In my house, we play games when I have company over. The game I would like to play is a fun one, one of my favorites. Give me a dead body before sunrise, and I will let the rest of you live. Kill the ugliest, and the rest of you will be free."

She dropped the can to the floor, where it clattered to the floor with a loud clang. At this point, they were trapped alive inside with a serial killer, so she cared not if he happened to hear the noise. "We're stuck."

"I'll say," mumbled Todd gravely, peering out the window behind the curtain with some level of amusement. "Mr. Morning Killer's not going to let any of us live until we kill the ugliest, you lot."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on!" protested Tino, raising his hands in mock defense. "No one's saying we have to play this sicko's game! We can choose to or not."

"Hoo, boy!" howled Alice, almost sounding amused. "Look at you, Mr. Hotshot Chicago Detective! You really think that's how this works?" she admonished, glaring at Tino Balducci with hatred, venom dripping from her words as she chastised him. "Listen, pal, we know this guy better than you, and he's not gonna let any of us out of here unless we do as he says."

Nancy's blood turned to ice. "You—you can't possibly mean what I think you're saying! Alice, don't pay attention to his message, we—we just have to stall long enough for help to arrive, and then we'll—"

Now it was Nancy's turn to withstand the worst of Alice's wrath. She turned her attentions towards the young detective. "And how are we gonna do that, little miss? Do you see help arriving? Huh?" she challenged as she spread her arms out in front of her, as though daring Nancy to look around for a police officer, anyone who could help them out.

Prudence Rutherford either could not or refused to comment. Her face was absolutely drained of color, and for a moment, Nancy worried for her heart, as old as she was, she did not think she could take another shock after the night they had endured.

"Kill the ugliest, huh?" repeated Todd, looking thoughtful as he picked up the soup can and turned it over in his hands. He glared at Tino. "Maybe it oughta be your brains splattered all over the wall. I like you more and more for the part, boy! Every time you open your stinking mouth, all I hear is trash!" The owner of the inn wasted no time in grabbing his own shotgun off its display mount, cocking it and pointing it at all of them.

"W—whoa, hold on now, just hang on!" shouted Frank, his face going white as he looked into Todd's emotionless eyes. "Todd, what do you think you're doing? Don't do this!" he begged, but his pleas fell onto deaf ears.

"You lot think you can come into our home, eat our food, stay here with us, well, you're dead wrong! It's cause of you all that Morning Killer is here, we was doing just fine with our lives till you showed up! Well, guess what, your time's up! Into the basement!"

Nancy turned to Alice, hoping his wife could talk some sense into his sudden panicked madness. "Alice," she pleaded, laying a gentle hand on Alice's arm. The older woman's face remained impassive. "Talk to Todd, please! Tell him this is insane!"

Alice fixed the young detective with a cold stare.

"Todd, don't you make a mess in my living room, now! If you must, do it in the meat locker!" she snapped harshly, her voice losing all semblance of matronly warmth. "I'm sorry, dearie, but we gotta look out for ourselves. You know how it is, surely."

Nancy moaned, and would have collapsed to the floor had Frank not hurriedly moved to catch her as the strength left her legs. "Alice, Todd, don't do this! There has to be another way out! There's always another way, we don't have to kill anyone!" she shouted, feeling the onset of fresh tears well in her eyes. Angrily, she flicked them back with her finger.

_There is time for that later_, her father's voice commanded inside her head. _Now, stay alive_.

Todd had wrenched Prudence to her feet, shoving her forehead through the kitchens and towards the meat locker. The meat locker itself was freezing, white as death. It was its own horror show; the dead pig corpses lined up and stretched out with the most ignominious ways. Then there was the smell of blood, the death stench that made Nancy pinch her nose as she felt the barrel of Todd's shotgun dig into her back as he guided her towards the locker, forcing her to stand next to Prudence, who was violently shaking. Moreover, in it all stood Todd, who now held a cleaver in hand. Nancy trembled as she stood next to Prudence, and it was not from the freezing temperature. "Oh, God," she whispered, terrified.

"It's okay, Nan," whispered Frank reassuringly, though she could see it in her husband's eyes that he didn't look convinced. "We'll—we'll get out of here, I promise. And when we do, we might not come back from Mohonk," he teased lightly, hoping to make a joke to make his distraught wife feel better, feeble though it may have been, he tried his hardest.

Nancy reached for Frank's hard, gripping it tight. If they got out of this alive, she agreed with staying in Mohonk, perhaps longer than their intended week.

Nancy's gaze drifted towards the still open doorway. One person was missing as Todd heralded Tino in at last, looking every bit like a sheep headed for slaughter. "Alice, where is Dan?" she asked, unable to keep the fear from creeping into her tone.

"He likes to hide," she stated matter-of-factly.

"Hide?" she repeated, stumbling a little backwards into Frank, who maintained a tight grip on her shoulders. "Where did he go, Alice?" she demanded.

"Oh, he's around," she retorted, lifting a lock of Nancy's hair and studying it with a scrutinizing eye. "But you, missy, you're a special one, aren't you?" she crooned mockingly. "No point in killing you, yet. We'll wait till Dan's through with you, and then we'll decide what to do with you, famous _detective_."

Nancy let out a little whimper of fear and clung to Frank's arm tightly._ Trapped, trapped and no way out_, she thought desperately, meeting Frank's gaze at last, and she was surprised to see he was surprisingly calm, not panicking like she was.

"Frank," she whispered, doing her best not to move her lips, as a ventriloquist would, as the pair watched Alice and Todd turn towards Prudence and Tino next. "Tell me you have a plan. Where's Sonny?"

"Disappeared," came his answer, soft and barely audible. "I think he disappeared into the basement when the chaos started. Joon got a weird look in his eyes, as if he knew more than we did. I want to find him. First, have to get out of here, deal with Todd and Alice. I have a plan, Nance, follow my lead, yes?"

She gave a curt nod, resuming her perfected look of indifference as Todd noticed them talking, his eyes narrowed to mere slits as he sauntered casually over towards the couple, the cleaver gleaming in his hands. The house seemed to creak and groan as they moved along the floorboards, protesting the movement. Nancy if she did not know better would have thought the house was haunted, a mind of its own. _Houses aren't haunted_, her mind scolded.

"Get a grip on yourself, Drew," she whispered through clenched teeth as Alice stared her down.

The innkeeper scoffed and rolled her eyes. "That's what you think, missy," she retorted angrily, almost as if she could read her very thoughts, rendering her speechless. Nancy's gaze drifted downwards and saw one of her fingernails was blackened, a detail she had somehow missed before in her original assessment of Alice. "We'll see what you think."

_So they do have plans for me_, she thought, horrified.

Todd spoke up, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"I think there's no going quick for any of you. We're just gonna leave you here in this freezer to freeze to death, nice and _slow_, no bloodshed required. Think of it as a mercy killing, less painful that way," Todd Jameson snapped haughtily, dragging Alice behind him, shoving her forward and locking the door behind him. Their footsteps clambered down the hall, leaving Frank, Prudence, Tino, and Nancy alone.

"Nan," encouraged Frank gently, trying his best to control the incessant chattering of his teeth. "T—tell me you have something in your purse you can pick the lock with," he pleaded, sounding desperate.

Nancy rummaged through her purse and found a bobby pin. She jiggled the doorknob. "It's locked," she sighed, inserting the pin into the lock and wiggling it, maneuvering it carefully and gently until she heard the satisfying click and the door swung open. "But not for long," she said, shooting her husband and the others a weak grin of triumph.

Prudence shuddered as a cold chill went down her spine and the color slowly returned to her cheeks. She glanced around the living room uneasily. "Where's that other fellow? The one with the wild hair? Mr. Joon, is his name, I think?" she whispered, careful to keep her voice low and her gaze alert, looking for any signs their hosts might come back.

"I think he disappeared into the basement," explained Frank quietly, raising his finger to his lips, signaling her as politely as he could to be quiet. "Let's try there first, and once we find him, we can find another way out of here. I have no intention of killing anyone tonight or dying, do you all agree?"

Tino and Prudence nodded their silent agreement.

"Good," he instructed, feeling his detective voice come out, the voice of someone harder, someone in charge. A leader. "I say we split up, cover more ground, see if we can find a different way out of here, and those two creeps can't catch us all if we—oh, hell!" he swore, as the sound of a loud, guttural roar filled the living room as Todd re-emerged, looking livid and beside himself at their escape. "Split up, split up! We'll regroup later!" he called out, breaking into a run, dragging Nancy behind him, Tino doing the same with Prudence. Before Nancy could protest, he shoved Nancy forward into the basement. Frank's face was the last thing she saw before he closed the door and covered her in darkness. "I'll come find you, Nan," he promised tenderly, his eyes darting towards Todd's form, which was rapidly advancing on him.

"Frank, no!" she called out, but she was too late.

Her husband shut the door to the basement, leaving Nancy at the top of the stairs, covered in the darkness. Nancy had seen darkness before, the kind that made their street at home seem like an old fashioned photograph, everything a shade of gray.

This wasn't like that. No, this was the darkness that robbed Nancy of her best senses and replaced it with a paralyzing fear that she wasn't used to, nor did she like. In the darkness she stood, rooted to her spot on the top stairwell, her muscles cramped and unable to move. She only knew her eyes were still there because she could feel herself blink rapidly, still instinctively moisturizing the organs she currently had no use for. Nancy couldn't hear anything, either.

She supposed that should have brought down her heart rate down below the level of 'rabbit in a snare,' but it didn't. The dawn, when their 'game' was up was many hours away and until that time, Nancy could only wait and try not to get herself killed in the meantime. Moving made noise, it's bad enough she still had to breath. But Nancy desperately wanted to live to see tomorrow with her husband enough to make her hold this position for as long as it took.

"No way am I going down there," she muttered, her hand gripping the stairwell tightly that her knuckles were white with the effort. Not making it meant not being there for Frank and that is something she would never willingly do. "Abandoning isn't my thing," she whispered, trying to reassure her nerves.

Nancy started to move when the basement door wrenched open, and there stood Dan, intimidating and his form practically taking up all of the space.

"You think you can run from me?" he bellowed, lunging for Nancy, leaving her no choice but to bolt down the stairs and into the dark basement below.


	7. Chapter 6: Cat and Mouse

The stakes of his game were working out even better than the Morning Killer could have hoped. He sat on the roof, letting his legs dangle precariously over the edge as he twirled his favorite dagger in his hands, admiring the sheen of the metal in the moonlight.

He had taken meticulous time and handpicked all his players, but it was the girl that intrigued him the most, the younger one. Nancy, he thinks her name is. She really _was_ quite pretty, with that auburn hair of hers and those pretty blue eyes; even he had to admit it. It would be a pity to ruin her beautiful face. "Almost," he jeered aloud, still twirling his knife. He briefly wondered which player would cave and kill one of them first. He knew the girl and her husband wouldn't, but if he was being honest with himself, he was quite looking forward to getting to kill them the last. The Morning Killer knew Frank Hardy and Nancy Drew would likely be the last ones standing.

His conscious was taunting him. _Why do you like her so much?_ _What makes this girl different from any of the others you have killed in the past? _His voice was asking him, challenging the one tiny part of his heart that was still remotely good. "She's unique, not easily scared, this one. Though by the end of the night, she will be," the Morning Killer chuckled lightly to himself, the sound of the thunder in the sky above hiding his laughter. "The house will deal with her, and as for her husband, well, _I'll_ deal with him."

Now his other voice was talking to him. _Oh, yes, the house will break her spirit, she will practically be begging you to kill her before the night is out, won't she? This house is not like the other ones. We know that, don't we, sir? Nope, this house is…different. _

The house, well, more of a mansion really, he'd picked lived under constant shadow, as if the sun kept reaching for those walls that shrunk away. So its windows stayed black without the rippling effect of the light, knowing that the dust that clung, the dirt of years, could so easily be washed away. The walls were so cold to the touch, stealing the heat from his fingers as he caressed one of the roof's shingles, never caring if his own heart froze over.

That there were ghosts inside were a certainty, which they tended to bluster around screaming, was a fact, that they did what they did best: showed each person their worst fears, yet only the house could usher them out and wish for the rays to kiss it some warmth. Until then, the paint will peel and the wood would rot, forever wishing for the warmth of a touch.

_But she doesn't believe in ghosts, sir_, came his voice.

"She will," he growled to no one. _You will. _

* * *

Nancy's breath came in small spurts, hot and nervous. At her sides, pale fingers curled into sweaty fists, swinging forward as if it would make her faster. Behind her, she could hear the heavy panting of Dan, and that only encouraged her to go faster.

"Please, God, let me live," she cried aloud, throwing herself forward with even greater abandon. Her lungs and heart were pumping, but the air didn't seem to be enough as she sprinted forward, panic trembling in her exhausted limbs as she desperately tried a closed door, wrenching it open and locking it behind her. Trying her hardest to drown out Dan's furious screams and the jiggling of the doorknob, she breathed heavily, and groped for a light switch.

She flicked on the light switch and let out a startled cry of surprise, hardly daring to believe her eyes. It started with a slight shimmer, as if the air in front of Nancy was being warped and twisted. Then, in a flash of pale, silver a light, a mean appeared before her, a man that she recognized. Dressed in a crisp white shirt, the shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, and black pants, Nancy tried her hardest to ignore the huge crimson stain on the man's shirt.

"Ned," she croaked, hardly daring to believe it. "Is it really you?" she whispered, reaching out a trembling hand, almost afraid to touch him, as if she were to try, would she only graze the air. His skin was so white, the bags under his eyes prominent and dark. The blood from his chest wound where he had been shot and killed by Officer Luke Perry a few years ago had begun to turn brownish more than scarlet, still seeping from the entry point in a thick, disgusting stream of red. He was no longer human. Every choice had led Nancy here, to the side of the demons. "Ned," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Say something. Is it really you?" she encouraged, hoping he talked.

She bit her lip and fell silent.

He was close to her now, very close. At first, his whisper was like the soft susurration of the wind in the trees, and then as the ghost became clearer, more sharply focused, Ned's whisper became an eerie rasping voice, moaning, groaning, and nothing audible. His once vibrant eyes that had sparked with love and intensity for Nancy were now gaunt and lifeless. It had taken so long for the thing that used to be Ned Nickerson to absorb the trails of careless specters, amassing, growing. In his current density things flowed naturally toward him, caught in his gravitational pull. It was quickly apparent to him that he had over done it; he could not live in this world and terrorize it slowly as planned. He was still absorbing fractions of spirits wherever he went, more mass would be drawn into him, more spirits until he was dense enough to suck in the planet. The ghost did not think much of dissipating again, non-existence would return to him soon enough. The only question he pondered was how to slow the destruction so that he could savor it even more.

Ned Nickerson was a trapped soul, too scared to move on, desperate not to stay. At the end of his life, he asked to be nothing at all. In his thirty years of life, he had accumulated so much guilt that when the hand of salvation came he refused it, repeatedly. Energy cannot be created or destroyed (souls are a form of divine energy) and so according to his wishes he was released to roam as a spirit. Over time, the loneliness took over from the relief of solitude and he came to the opinion that it was God who had refused him, his own choice quite forgotten. The ghost became angry, his divine energy warped until there was none left – not destroyed but mutated into something so vile that he could never be saved. Not content to haunt, or even be a poltergeist, he learnt how to whisper in the ears of his victims. He learnt how to appear so that only they could see him and feel his "electrical" pulses. Once a mortal man, he became the self-styled enemy of the divine. The natural order to him was fear, greed and power. When the ghost tired of his petty malice he found men to control, not as possession, but to whisper evil deeds to and watch while they carried them out.

"You…killed…me…" his voice rasped. "Nancy…"

"No," she whispered, tears flowing down her cheeks, with her unaware they were doing so. "I…I didn't!"

Ned let out a horrible scream that she knew would haunt her the rest of her life. She didn't believe in ghosts and would be the first to admit it, she couldn't explain this, but she was seeing _something_.

Beneath her feet, the basement floor felt soft, not as much as even a firm carpet, but not right for oak planks. Wherever she was in this basement, she was in a bedroom of some kind. She briefly hoped it wasn't Dan's. Nancy moved to the edge of the room, her skirts of her dress brushing against the mildewed wall. It was hard to make out the details of the room, but after a minute, she began to truly see it for what it was. It was abandoned, old, and dusty.

Abandoned knitting projects lay on a chair in a corner, grayed with layers of dust, not even a glimmer of red wool fighting the floor. Forgetting the floor, she rushed forward. "Frank!" she bellowed, pleading desperately for someone to come to her aid, shortly forgetting that the albino was out there after her still. "Sonny! Prudence! Anyone?" Her only answer was the creaking of the door moving lazily, and she drew in a sharp breath that pained her lungs as she heard her deceased ex-boyfriend let out another horrible guttural groan that sounded like he was choking on his own blood in the back of his throat. "Oh, no," she whispered, turning to face that the thing that was Ned—or pretending to be Ned—and she staggered backwards, her mind swirling, her breathing shallow until she fell in a heap to the floor, her memories consuming her as she dived for the blackness, flashbacks of how she met Ned forming in her mind until it was all she could think of.

_Ned_, she thought desperately. _I'm so sorry…_

* * *

A man was lying on the ground of the football field, breathless but still alive, his football jersey torn slightly. Nancy had been on her way back from one of her forensics classes and had stumbled across the young man's unconscious form. She turned his body over so she could clearly see his face. Nancy was surprised, recoiling in shock and surprise.

He was a man of any girl's dreams. He looked to be not much older than she was, by a few years, at least, with smooth, flawless skin, which was like a sheet of well-done cloth. His eyes, underneath his mop of short brown hair, glinted in the late afternoon sunlight. The man had a high-bridged nose in between his two eyes, perfect and slender. His soft, sharp lips were very attractive and captivating. Nancy resisted the urge to touch them, to run her finger along the edges, but decided not to.

"You need help," she whispered quietly, kneeling down and throwing his limp arm over her shoulder, groaning slightly at his added weight, and she having to mostly support him as they walked. "Your name, can you tell me your name?" she encouraged brightly, seeing his eyelids flicker open, revealing a brilliant shade of brown, a deep rich oak and umber, flecked with bits of gold at his irises. Beautiful.

"Ned," he croaked out weakly, glancing at his savior out of the corner of a swelling black and purple eye.

"Nancy Drew," she returned shyly, throwing him a kind smile as she escorted him to the college's on campus medical clinic, where she waited in the waiting room.

She stood when she saw him emerge from the back at last after an hour waiting, setting aside the book she'd been reading and looked up to see the man named Ned conversing with the nurse in low tones, a bottle of what looked like prescription pills in hand. He was admittedly looking much better now, and for that, the young amateur detective was relieved.

"Nancy, right? I think you saved my life. If you wouldn't have come, I don't know if anyone would have found me," he asked, shooting her a dazzling white smile, the color in his face slowly returning to normal, although that shiner of a black eye would probably remain for at least a week, maybe two.

She nodded. "That's me," she chirped, feeling herself get sucked into his gaze and unable to look away. "What happened to you, Ned?" she asked, feeling her senses begin to tingle as she noticed him admiring her that made her blush. She tossed her red hair over her shoulders, shifting her purse to her shoulder and opened the door to the clinic for him, walking with Ned Nickerson, a sophomore in college, on the side streets to a nearby restaurant, a quaint little place called Poe's, modeled after Edgar Allen Poe himself, all their burgers after his famous works of art. "Have you eaten anything since you passed out?" she inquired, watching, as he shook his head no and flashing her another gentle smile that sent her heart reeling in a way she wasn't sure what to do with. "Well, do you want to come with me and we'll grab a quick bite to eat? It's the very least I can do for you, I want to make sure you're okay," she said.

"I'd like that," he said quietly, wincing slightly at the stiffness in his knees and back as he gingerly sat in a booth and waited for Nancy to take the seat across from him. "In case you can't tell by my shirt, I play football," he joked weakly, gesturing to his now practically ruined red and black jersey. "The roar of the crowd is better than anything to me. The rush of a touchdown, the spirit of the game, a hot dog and a pop—that is heaven to me. Every game, I pull on my jersey and join our army of red and black."

"So is football how you got that?" Nancy asked, sipping on an ice water through a straw as she quirked her brow towards Ned's purpling black eye.

"Yup," he nodded weakly, reaching for his own drink, a Coke, and nursing it gently, as much as his injuries could allow. "One of our quarterbacks got a little rough during practice, and…well, I passed out."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Nancy replied softly, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips as their food finally arrived, the waiter almost seeming to struggle with how heavy the tray was. "Oh, sir, the check comes to me, please! I'm paying for it," she added, noticing out of the corner of her eye Ned open his mouth to protest as she dug into her purse for her wallet, pulling out her credit card and giving it to the waiter with their check so she could pay for their food.

"You didn't have to do that!" protested Ned vehemently, looking only slightly offended.

"I know," she said quietly. "But I wanted to," she replied warmly, smiling at him. "Eat and feel better. Enjoy, don't worry about the bill, Ned, please. It's my treat."

Ned had ordered Poe's famous Amontillado burger, with guacamole, jalapeno jack cheese, Pico de Gallo and chipotle sour cream, and hand cut French fries. Nancy, on the other hand, had ordered the Gold Bug Plus burger, a burger crafted like a work of art with pimento, roasted garlic bleu, sweet pepper goat and jalapeno jack cheese, her side of fries also incredibly generous. She could never eat it all. They ate in silence for a while. Nancy could tell by the way Ned devoured his burger he hadn't eaten for several hours, maybe even a day or two, even. "Do you think you'll be well enough by our next game on Saturday to play? You're our wide receiver, aren't you? I think I've seen you around campus a few times, now that I think on it," she asked, munching on a handful of fries as she dipped them into her cup of ketchup.

"I hope so," he mumbled, taking his time chewing and swallowing his bite of burger before answering. He took a sip of water to down the meat before shooting Nancy another charming smile. "I was…sort of hoping to see you there, actually," he teased lightly. "I was thinking, you know, afterwards if you want, we could go see a movie or something?"

Nancy froze. Was he asking her out on a _date_? Then there was Frank to consider. She had met him the other day in her favorite coffee shop on campus, where he had kindly returned her wallet to her after she had carelessly left it on top of the counter next to the register, and he had seemed interested in her, but had been too shy or noble to make a move.

There was something in the way Ned Nickerson laughed that reminded Nancy of her better self. There was something pure in the way he seemed to struggle to do what was right, it was a kind of honesty that she, as an amateur detective, admired.

She could tell Ned was a man who had a creative brain, one that brought such creative ideas and magic to life, and he enjoyed the spark of a new idea.

Nancy decided that she liked it in the man and decided to give a chance. Frank would have either accept her decision or tell her how he felt, and since he seemed too shy to do such a thing, she would take a chance on the man sitting across from her.

"I'd like that," she whispered, her beaming smile sealing the beginning of a long relationship.

If only she could have known it would have ended in tragedy….


	8. Chapter 7: High Stakes

Frank could never have guessed nor could he have anticipated that a simple road trip to New York's Mohonk Mountain Resort would end up with him and his beloved wife in a fight for their lives. He grunted as he finally lost Todd upstairs, the hallways seemingly looming and never-ending.

"Just hang in there, Nance," he whispered, trying one of the bedrooms and finding it unlocked. "I'm coming for you. We'll get out of this alive, honey."

Frank immediately fell silent as he listened to the approaching footsteps and the raised voices of Todd and Alice Jameson.

"That slippery little shit, I _knew_ the girl's husband was gonna be trouble! Shoulda killed them all when I had the chance. Rotten sinners, thinking they come in here and own our home like a bunch of—of thieves!" ranted Todd, the sound of his gun cocking.

"What do you want to do?" came Alice's voice. "You know the rules. We open that door for him, we live."

"_You_ open the door, Alice," he shot back hotly. "There's no way the Morning Killer's gonna let this slide, nuh uh. I say we hunt them down, let's go after the old woman and that prick detective from Chicago. Mr. Big City Nights himself," he jeered. "Ain't no way they got out, Alice. He's got all the exits blocked. Besides, the girl went down into the basement, I saw her. She won't get out," he laughed. "As for you and me, we got ourselves to look out for. You know the rules of his game. High stakes, as always."

"Dan will take care of her, I think," Alice murmured, sounding like she was nodding in agreement. "What about the husband, that Hardy fellow, Todd?"

"Let him rot up here," snarled Todd through gritted teeth. "The house'll fix him up good and scared. Plus, something tells me he's gonna wanna go after his little wife, and when he goes into the basement, he's Morning Killer's to do with as he pleases, Alice."

Frank held his sigh of relief in his chest until he heard their footsteps echo and fade away as they descended back downstairs in search of Prudence and Tino. Wherever they were hiding, he hoped they were safe. They all had to make it out of here alive.

Frank felt his strength give out and he slumped against the door to the floor, burying his face in his knees, breathing slow and deep, trying to regulate his breathing back to something that resembled even a semblance of normalcy, but it was hard, so damn hard. "Nancy," he groaned to himself. "I swear I'll get us out of this, this is all my fault. I tried to do something nice for us and look where it got us!"

He could have sworn he heard her talking to him, her soothing shy quiet voice calming his frayed nerves in that special way that only she could.

_You couldn't have known that, Frank. Don't blame yourself. If not for us, then this could easily be someone else. We just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. We will get out of here, love. _

Frank wearily lifted his head and had been about to stand and felt himself rooted to his spot on the floor.

"What the hell?" he whispered, horrified. "Is this…_Ned_? What the hell, how are you here?"

_Hello, Frank_, the thing seemed to whisper menacingly. _You took Nancy from me. You made me suffer…and suffer…and suffer…You're a monster._

Ned Nickerson appeared to be frozen in place in front of Frank Hardy, only the movement of his transparent hair gave it away that his former friend was not some brilliant Halloween decoration. The thing—if this even _was_ Ned—was staring at him with unnaturally wide eyes, his face passive and slack. After a moment of indecision, it took half a step backward and turned to go. The door slammed shut, and he could hear the clock in the room on the wall cease to tick. There was no sound from the outside world, no clap of thunder, or an approaching car. Then the air was rent with a scream that was so piercing he collapsed to the floor in a fetal position, his hands clamped over his ears, not that it made any difference. The air in the bedroom became cold and Frank's body heat quickly deserted his blood for the frigid atmosphere. An awareness crept over him that he was no longer in contact with the ground, but spinning. Once he opened his eyes, the room was no longer there, instead, there was only Ned Nickerson's face and his open mouth that was magnified. In paralysis, Frank was drawn to it…

* * *

Frank's skin still tingled where his and Nancy's fingers had met the day he had returned her wallet to her. Ever since that day, his heart had beat erratically in his chest every time he thought of Nancy, hoping to catch another glimpse of her famous red hair on campus, praying he'd run into her again. There were butterflies—no, lions—in his chest, but he did not deny that it felt good to him.

He finally admitted to himself what he knew all along, but was too afraid to admit it. He liked Nancy. A lot. And he wanted to be with her, whatever it took.

Frank knew that a crush was nothing more than a lust for someone, but that didn't change anything in his eyes. Nancy Drew was still always there in his mind. Every day when he was fortunate enough to lay eyes on her, that was it. He thought about her for the entire day. When their eyes locked, her eyes burned his as if he had been staring at the sun for too long. She was his crush, but she will never be his. That much he already knew, given Frank had seen her several times now around campus, with Nickerson in tow, seeming to become increasingly close with the football team's wide receiver.

Almost as if she had a sixth sense for these sorts of things, Nancy walked down the bustling streets of River Heights and looked his way, her little bulldog, Togo, on his leash. He felt the heat rise to his cheeks as she looked in his direction. He thought she was looking fantastic in a dark green turtleneck sweater dress and leggings and black boots, the green complimenting the red tones of her hair. She grinned at Frank and he snapped his head away, knowing that if he continued to stare, he would get lost in those big blue eyes of hers. He could feel her eyes on him as he silently inhaled and exhaled, hoping that her thoughts about him were good. Frank's heart thumped so hard he swore it was audible as Nancy continued to stroll along the side streets opposite Frank, their eyes met and he smiled. It was only a small smile from her, but it was enough to make him go weak at the knees, feeling helpless.

Nancy's face was mobile in the way deeply happy and content peoples are, simply lacking the tension anxiety brings. Her eyes had a softness to them, there was something so welcoming in the rich brilliant blues the color of a robin's egg. Frank felt just a little more lost, a little more at home, each time they spent together, getting to know her better.

There was something different about Nancy Drew that made Frank Hardy feel so young inside, but not in a childish way. She woke the pure side of him, the best side, and all the facets of himself that only required love to be healthy and whole. Should he have eternity to be with this woman, he would sink into serenity, just content enough to be close to Nancy at his side.

Their energy together vibrated in such a unique way, each the perfect complement of the other. He irrationally found himself wishing Nancy would be the one that he would someday marry, but such a dream was impossible for him if she were dating Ned.

Any other would only be a poor reflection, no more substantial than the shadow of the real thing. Nancy was what made Frank's heart strong. Her smile alone burnished his soul into a beauty it could have never achieved on its own. Before they met, he was one, now he was a half, yet somehow so much more than he ever was before, though Nancy was not his.

She never would be. Frank was painfully reminded of this fact at the sudden onset arrival of Nickerson himself, who stooped low to give Nancy a gentle kiss on the cheek, not noticing Frank's bristling stare of jealousy. Or if he did notice, Ned chose to ignore it.

Needing a distraction from being forced to watch their embrace, wishing that it were _he_ who was kissing Nancy right now instead of Ned and taking Togo for a walk, admiring the shops around the Christmas holiday. Frank became allured by the scent of freshly baked Christmas cookies—frosted sugar by the smell of them—coming from a neighboring bakery amidst the bustling streets of River Heights' annual Victorian Christmas Walk. Frank took his lingering gaze off the enormous Christmas tree adorned with glistening ornaments and glowing fairy lights draped around it.

Strolling alongside the magnificently structured buildings of River Heights' downtown, Frank watched as people swarmed in and out of the bustling coffee shops and bakeries like a swarm of bumblebees. As the evening sky faded away, the pink and orange hues were replaced with dark shades of blue, whilst the amber light of the street lamps spilled onto the stone-paved streets. In turn, the elegantly decorated, wooden stalls slowly revealed their hidden wonders, attracting long queues of bustling customers.

The festively designed stalls, illuminated with blinking Christmas lights, vibrant ornaments and brightly colored signs, were lined up along either side of the street and had varieties of delectable treats, jasmine scented fragrances, skillfully handcrafted greeting cards and unlimited choices of gifts to customers occupied for endless periods.

The warm smiles of the people behind the stalls as they tossed freshly roasted, golden brown chestnuts into paper cones or carefully poured creamy hot chocolate into mugs and added generous layers of whipped cream, was returned by the beaming grins of the children who were eagerly waiting to get their mug. The energetic youngsters giggling at their creamy chocolate mustaches were followed soon after. The loud, spirited laughter of adults could be heard over the continuous chatter surrounding the vivacious atmosphere.

"Hey, wait, Frank!" Nancy's distinctive voice could be heard coming from behind him. He turned, a wry smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he watched Togo's little nub of a tail wag at seeing his second favorite human, next to Nancy, of course.

"Hey, Togo," he crooned, kneeling down, removing his hands from his jacket pocket and giving the little white and brown bulldog a pat on the head, scratching his ears affectionately. "How you doing, buddy?" Nancy's dog had been her companion in quiet moments and those blossoming of hilarity that only dogs bring. He gets that look about him whenever Togo was puzzled, or excited or serious, all those emotions that were so similar to humans.

Togo was Nancy's best friend, no doubt about it.

"Ned and I were just about to go to one of those Cuban places we've heard so much about to grab a bite to eat, do you want to join us?" she asked shyly, a gleam in her eyes. "Have you eaten anything yet?"

"No, not yet," he added. "But I'd like that," he added, smiling warmly at the woman who currently and would always hold his heart in her pocket, noticing how cold she was and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, falling in sync with her as they walked back to where Ned stood casually waiting, Togo proudly leading the way, walking as his kind usually did, as if his little body were too wide for his legs.

Ned smiled at Nancy as if he was happy right down to his soul, like there was no part of him where sadness dwelled. The football player had no mannerisms that showed damage of any kind. Frank would have sold his soul just to be him for a day, to walk in those shoes instead of his own, for Nancy to be his girlfriend. If that was envy, he didn't care.

How fair was it to be born so ordinary and then be judged for wanting more? Frank knew deep in the recesses of his heart, he disliked Ned with a huge passion, though he would never admit it to anyone. His presence buzzed around him like a fly he could never swat. He had designer clothes, lived in a mansion with his well-to-do parents. He had a beautiful girl like Nancy for a girlfriend. Ned Nickerson had everything. And there was Frank.

Frank Hardy, the only thing he had going for him other than his good looks was his sleuthing skills.

He tried to shove his dark thoughts of jealousy and envy aside and enjoy a dinner of pressed turkey Cuban sandwiches and fries with Ned and Nancy.

Ned was the first one to leave, leaving Frank and Nancy lingering outside the Cuban restaurant once they had closed. "Thanks for spending the evening with us, Frank," she said shyly, leaning forward and having to practically stand on her tiptoes to kiss Frank's cheek. When she kissed his cheek, Frank knew there was more to it, for Nancy to get so intimate; there was always a pressing reason. Frank felt warmth spread through his limbs and his mind felt a pleasant buzz. Every good thing seems possible, likely even. Nevertheless, Frank knew that a simple peck like this could convey as much meaning as a full-on kiss. Simple though it may be, a kiss on the cheek was special in its own way. Then he heard Nancy speak, barely a whisper as she drew back and smiled. "In your coat pocket." She turned away, Togo's leash in her gloved hands, before he can think to reply, her green sweater dress melting into the dark street as she walked home.

He reached into his coat pocket without even being aware he was doing so until he pulled out a beautiful ornate magnifying glass wrapped in a giant red bow.

Frank smiled as he watched Nancy's silhouette retreat, until she and Togo disappeared around the corner, gone from his line of sight for now. The snow alighted on Frank's face softer than a blanket, and just as could as the memories had turned. In this swirl of white as the snow fell, the world was washed anew, like a new page, but he did not want it. He wanted to turn the pages back and dwell on the details of Nancy's face, their time spent before Ned had appeared, but life was pulling him forward into the unknown with one hand and erasing his past with the other. His thoughts were thicker than the snow that was slowly morphing into a blizzard that showed no signs of stopping anytime soon, at least.

"She's gone, she was never mine." He turned around to see his footprints. He was not there anymore, but they were, as were his. He figured when he got home, he would find a special case to display the magnifying glass in, and the letter she wrote him, unsealed, for his eyes only, for Frank. Though she could never be his, he would hope for it.


	9. Chapter 8: Principles of Prudence

Prudence Rutherford considered herself a proud woman, one who prided her abilities to hide her true emotions, but that talent was not currently working for her right now. If anything, the socialite was a mess. Here she was, with Tino Balducci of all people, running for her lives in some godforsaken dump of a house that dared to call itself an inn, with a killer in their midst. For all she knew, the Morning Killer could be any one of them! This thought had crossed her mind and refused to part from her thoughts.

Prudence had heard it said before that age was a cruel mistress, or was that time, she could not quite recall. She had not understood it back then, but now the cruelty was beginning to make itself apparent to her. She did not feel a day over twenty in her mind, but now her face was beginning to look like an over-stored apple, her grin was gap-toothed from extractions, though society would never know this thanks to amazing orthodontics, and dentures, and her joints ached in the foggy weather they had been having lately. All that was on the horizon now was more of the ravages of age steeling into her skin and bones bit by bit, until eventually even her mind would not escape it. She had watched her mother's decline decades before, she had been spry and mentally alert right up to her eighty-one, and then the downhill slide was as rapid as a toboggan on a slippery winter hill. Prudence Rutherford was old.

Prudence began moving about the room like there is a hurricane inside her. She is moving as if her brain is demanding the energetic expenditure of an athlete but will not tell her limbs what to do. Her eyes are wild and when Tino forced her to sit, she starts rocking, rocking, rocking. She gets faster and faster until she explodes into motion again. Suddenly she's taking. Talking as if she does not have enough time to say what she needs to. Her words are crowded together and some are missing. Her sentences are fragmented and her thoughts seem to jump from one thing to another. All her fears are tumbling out unchecked by her brain, she is in some kind of mental free-fall, unable to analyze things or assess risk. Tino Balducci's words are bouncing off her like they were hard rain. Now she is right in front of him, her fingers are white-knuckled holding onto his jacket and she is asking him if it will be OK. He tells her yes. He tells her repeatedly, stroking her back and hoping she can calm down, pull it together.

There is a distance in Prudence's eyes as she takes a few steps backwards, bumping into the kitchen counter as if she wasn't expecting it. Her head rolls with the impact, eyes glazed. Her voice comes out thin and distant, "What, but, no, it didn't, that's... not... right..." She is breathing all wrong, beginning to gasp like there is not enough oxygen in the air.

A voice spoke up behind them, startling Prudence. She screamed, a high, piercing scream, but if it startled the Morning Killer, lurking in the shadows, he gave no indication of it. When the man spoke, his voice was deep, rich, and slightly husky, grave, even. "Fire doesn't care if it burns wood, pig fat or the flesh from your body. Like this knife, it has no preference at all. In this entire world, it is as blind as you will be just an hour from now, when your atoms are just atoms. Every part of your body is no more than a borrowed element forged in a star, and it is time for you to glow hot again – light up the night with the fat under your pampered skin. Burning can be fast or slow, I am thinking slowly, from your toes. In a house fire the smoke puts you out first, I suppose a kindness. I am not kind. You thought you could reform me, but you see Mrs. Rutherford, it is I that will reform you. Perhaps remodel is a better term, or release. I will give you a few moments to talk me out if it, if you can make yourself understood through the kerosene gag." He lunged towards the elderly socialite, shoving Tino violently out of the way.

The Morning Killer committed his first murder when he was fifteen. It just happened and at the time he didn't think much about it. The old couple he killed were homeless junkies, who traveled from places to places trying to overcome their heroin addiction. He observed the pair for a few days, walking around the lake shoreline, sitting on the pier looking at the landscape for hours at length. The Morning Killer decided that it was time to get a closer look at this target. From what he could see, the husband appeared to be around sixty, though he looked eighty, the wife younger, late fifties, but looking like she was also in her eighties, thanks to the drugs.

The murder happened in the morning, but when thinking back about it, it would be more accurately described as manslaughter. The Morning Killer did not have any deliberate purpose to kill these people, his mind was rather blank actually, and it was a slaughter all right. He went to the barn where the couple was staying, it was early morning. He saw the man lying on a blanket laid on the ground near a bale of hay, already awakened. He greeted the younger man and told him he did not think he would have such a visit in the morning. While the Morning Killer was coming closer to what would soon to be his first victim he noticed a spade lying against the barn wall no more than two yards from where the man had set his makeshift bedding. It what seemed a carefully choreographed but was actually a completely improvised move, the Morning Killer reached out for the spade, grasped it and with a perfect circular motion hurled it towards the head of the unsuspecting man. The blade of the spade hit the man's face with such violence that the impact produced a dull snapping noise. He was feeling elated as he looked at the face of the man, blood streaming out his poor victim's crushed nose.

Driven by a newly found instinct, Adrian completed his deed and crushed the man's skull with his makeshift and deadly weapon. He did the same for her, cherishing their screams as they filled the air.

The police never were able to identify him.

As he slowly advanced on Prudence, she felt an inexplicable tightness in her chest and a sudden shortness of breath. "Heart...attack…" she managed to gasp out, weakly clawing at her chest, as though she somehow thought that could make her situation better. Whether she was having one or not, it mattered not, and before Tino could so much as step forward to shield Mrs. Rutherford from harm, the man who dubbed himself the Morning Killer plunged his knife deep into Prudence's chest and twisted it.

The blood did not gush in a constant flow, but in time with the beating of Prudence Rutherford's heart. At first, it came thick and strong, flowing through his fingers as they clasped the ripped flesh. He felt the blood move over his hand, the thick fluid no warmer or cooler than his own skin. After a few moments, more the blood was still leaving his rapidly paling flesh, but the pulses were slower, weaker.

The pain that once burned like fire had faded away to an icy numbness. Black filled the edges of the socialite's vision and the only thing she could hear was my own heartbeat. Her breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. Seconds passed as Prudence lay there, then, she heard voices. People swarmed all over her, trying to help her, the old woman realized. They wanted to save her. If she could have, Prudence would have laughed. Surely, they could tell that it was far too late for her to be saved, yet they were like children, naive to the darkness of the real world. The despair and suffering of the world that took everyone Prudence had ever loved away from her. She would be joining her Phillip soon though, in heaven, if she had played her cards right. Prudence would be able to leave all the pain behind. She closed her eyes, she could die happily now. Prudence Rutherford's fragile, human heart beat one last time. She died peacefully.

Her last thoughts before she faded from the physical world and passed on were of whoever had killed her. _It is no accident that it is the reptile, the snake, that symbolizes evil in our myths. For these creatures do not require love to raise their young like mammals do. As such they do not evolve an ability to feel love, only to survive. Likewise the psychopath does not feel love, they are an evolutionary throw-back to our reptilian brains, an accident of genetics. But if we do not take the threat of them seriously they will continue to dominate our world, driving us into a hellish dystopia. If we are going to beat them, we the 99%, we must recreate our systems so that "nice guys win," not the most cut-throat and amoral. We must base all our systems on virtuous cycles or else hang our heads low and hand our children over to a system run by the very worst our species has to offer. Psychopaths can run charities as shields for the activities they truly enjoy – causing others pain and emotional distress. They take a perverse pleasure in attaining positions of public trust and respect, they are charming and socially intelligent. They don't play by the same rule book as the rest of society and so they win with ease. No morals means no restraints. They are the wolves, but we don't have to be the sheep. We can be lions. Nancy, wherever you are, I hope you get this guy. _

_Don't let him win._


	10. Chapter 9: Surprise Encounter

Everywhere Sonny turned in the basement, he saw himself, distorted, and panicked. He ran his hands over the mirrors as if just by touching something real he could keep his mind in the maze, this labyrinth the owners dare to call a basement. With so many images, all of them of his own suffering, he could not keep track of his own direction. He felt like he had been in there so long the sun should be setting already, but the light around him remained as bright as noon and beating down upon his head.

He had heard the screaming upstairs, and chose to stay down here, looking for a way out. There just had to be one, there had to. He would keep looking, even if it killed him…

* * *

It's dark, bright, pitch black and Nancy couldn't see a thing, but Dan was coming. He is coming and she cannot stop him, she cannot. Nancy cursed herself for being so polite at dinner, she shouldn't have even given him the time of day or tried to be nice, because look where that had gotten her! He hunted her down these hallways calling her name as if he were her friend - but in his hands is a knife and he means to twist it in her guts when he gets close. Nancy had been running in a scattered way, run and hide, rinse repeat. Now her heart beats like it means to explode and her mind is a scattered mess.

Nancy was not cool under pressure, she was no army general, and she was an administrative assistant at a police station, for God's sake. Then before Nancy knew it, she was out in the open, running down the hallways of the basement as if the devil himself is in pursuit. Only it's worse, her chaser is flesh and blood and means to send the detective straight to hell just the same. His rage, maliciousness and he takes twisted delight in her fear. Nancy did not know what the albino had in store for her, now he plans to hold her up as an example, to strike fear into the others but she will not be his to butcher. She will be alive when he was six feet under and throwing daisies on his grave. _I will run until there's no skin left on my feet, then I'll crawl if I have to get out of here_, she thought.

Nancy hurried into yet what felt like another bedroom and locked that door too. It was a room with a bed, nothing more. The place had been built for new aspiring homeowners before the downturn and none came. Everyone moved toward the city center for food and work, leaving the 'burbs to become a modern ghost town. Someone intending to claim the place before discovering the "pioneer" lifestyle that went with these out of the way abandoned palaces no doubt dragged in the bed.

The door creaked open, Nancy winced, visibly cringing, and she could tell from the burning, tingling feeling at the back of her skull that Dan had found her after hours of running from him.

She was caught. _Great_, she thought, suppressing a groan. _Where's Frank when I need him the most?_

When he spoke, his voice was quiet, timid, even.

"Do you like my room?" he asked, almost sounding childlike in a way. What was she dealing with, here? Ineptitude to behave like an adult? Mild cognitive impairment at best, probably brought on by years of abuse at the hands of Todd and Alice Jameson.

She was stuck between two desires. The first desire to spit in Dan's face and make a run for it, the other desire to play along and try to be nice, and just maybe, she would find a way out of this hellhole.

For better or worse, she decided to play along. _God help me_, she thought, praying as she slowly turned around and found herself face-to-face with Dan Jameson, who stood awkwardly in the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back, looking nervous.

"Yes, Dan," she said quietly, doing her best to quell the tremors in her voice. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat and tried again. "I do like your room. Do you live down here? How many rooms are down here, Dan?" Nancy asked, casually hoping to make conversation and hoping she could stall whatever sick scheme was going through his head. The detective took notice of how the albino man's chest puffed out just slightly, and he walked a little taller, more confident than before, seeming proud.

"Mama can't come in here," he said in hushed tones, raising a finger to his lips. "We have to be quiet."

"Why?" whispered Nancy, feeling a stab of fear seem to go straight to her heart. "Why can't she come here, Dan? Why is your mother not allowed in here, Dan?"

Dan glanced nervously over his shoulder. "She doesn't know about this room," he whispered, holding up a room key and slipping it into his pocket after he had locked the bedroom door behind, sending a chill down Nancy's spine, but she fought it down. If she showed any sign of visible disgust towards him, there was no telling how he would react to her.

"Dan, unlock the door," she said firmly. Realizing her tone sounded curter than she would have liked, she tried again. "Please unlock it, Dan. For me, please."

"No," he snapped and Nancy froze. The entitlement in his voice, the anger, he was going to do something.

What he had planned, she did not want to think it.

Dan Jameson wasn't thinking when he let out his boiling rage and swung his fist too tight towards Nancy's face, too quick and potent, into Nancy's defined jaw, the impact like thousands of venomous blades apart his clammed fist. It lead him to one conclusion. That it hurt, and Nancy had to pay.

Nancy normally hated resorting to violence, but she had no other choice as her fight or flight reactions kicked in, her body telling her if she couldn't fight, then she had to fight Dan with every ounce she could must. He threw his body weight behind the fist that edged closer to her face, it hit her jaw with such force that blood pooled in her mouth. It had been a good hit. Pain erupted from the point of impact. With her own two hands, Chief McGinnis' self-defense training classes kicked in, as she grasped Dan's head in her hands and brought her kneecap up to his nose, there was a blunt crack and she released his white-blond tuft of hair. Crimson blood leaked from both his nostrils and his nose was twisted grotesquely to the right. _Definitely broken_, thought Nancy triumphantly.

She took the opportunity to bolt for the door, disappearing into the darkness, only to find herself face-to-face with whoever had trapped them here.

Nancy froze, unable to find her voice. She could tell it was a man by the person's build, and he was several feet taller than her, towering over her, his black trench coat drenched from the rain, some horrible mask over his face to conceal his features.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice warbling only slightly. Only the slightest admission of fear.

"Your worst nightmare, Miss Drew. I will not kill you. Yet," he added, almost as an afterthought. "You all will kill the ugliest, and you have until dawn. If you don't, well, then you'll all die, and you won't like how I do it," he laughed, vanishing into the shadows."By the end of the night, all your principles you abide by will be destroyed."

Without another word, the masked man left her alone. She disappeared down another hallway, hoping this led to a way out. Eyes widened, breaths ragged and harsh. Her hands trembled at her sides and she jammed her fist into her mouth to stifle the scream. She had heard it coming; the soft susurration of its footsteps, like a threatening whisper. It did not seem to come from any direction, just a sound that encapsulated her inside her cocoon of despair and hopelessness. She probably wasn't going to make it out alive. Her legs were frozen into place, so she crouched into a crawl and dragged herself towards the edge of the room, gasping and choking. She clawed at the walls with bitten nails and the already peeling wallpaper came away at once. Her jaw dropped in a silent scream of horror.

Whatever the thing was, it looked like some horrible mutated dog, this thing growled, its shackles raised and preparing to lunge at her. She wasted no time.

Nancy ran down another hallway away from the dog creature, wondering if they would get out of this house alive. "I've never been in a place like this. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's haunted. We'll get out, Frank. We have to," she whispered, talking to herself, encouraging herself to keep going, if not for her, then for Frank. He needed her. Nancy's mind was starting to fail, like an engine that turns over and over, never kicking into action. She could not formulate a thought. Every action could lead to more pain and there was no way out of this house. No way out. She brought her hand to her throat, no blood. She glanced at the floor, no trap door. Her eyes went to the walls, the windows and doors were back, the iron grille gone. She breathed. There was a chance. This ghoul had limits. Maybe the window was always there, even if she made it look like brick. Outside was night now.

All she had to do was stall.


	11. Chapter 10: Guilt Ridden

There were times when Nancy felt she needed to admit to herself that she was scared. Now was definitely one of those times. She did not know how she had done it, but she had managed to get out of Dan's clutches, leaving him somewhere down in this labyrinth of a basement. There was no point denying it.

"Okay, Frank, I admit it. I'm scared," she whispered, trying another doorknob and finding it locked. "I'm down here with a crazy albino, hell-bent on doing who knows what to me if he can catch me, there's a killer on the loose trapped in here with us, and I can't find Frank. I'm scared, Frank. So scared. Won, and I— I've been there for you so many times. I have saved us both repeatedly, but right now, the forces at work here is something bigger than both of us. I don't know how to explain it, love, but_ I saw something_! I don't know where you are or if you can hear me, but I've never asked you to defend yourself, the pacifist that you are, but please, please, open your eyes and see what's heading your way. The Morning Killer—whoever he is—is coming for you. I know you'd never fire a single shot to save yourself, but it won't be just you that he takes down. He's going to kill you, then come after all of us. I—I don't know how, but we'll get out before that happens. I won't let him win."

She only hoped her words would be enough. Desperately wrenching open another door once she had picked the lock, she slammed it shut behind her, not caring if anyone down here heard. She was well past that point by now.

"What the hell is this?" Nancy whispered, her voice cracking slightly as she turned to take in her new surroundings. The scene before her felt like something out of a movie, like something out of one of those Harry Potter movies Frank loved so much. What did they call that thing?

"The Pensieve!" she whispered, momentarily becoming excited as she fell silent, watching the room come to life. Frank would have been proud of her for remembering that reference. "But what is this? Where am I? This—this isn't home," she moaned, watching as the bedroom she'd just entered into practically dissolved around her, the walls warping and melting away until the very walls themselves had vanished.

For a brief moment, she wondered if she had made it and was somehow back home. However, it didn't feel like home. No, this was different…

Distance was all that mattered. Kate Drew wasn't stopping for anything and she sure as hell wasn't taking her foot off the gas for a little rain. Kate's eyes stayed glued to the GPS display tracking their position while the world around her passed in a blur of red and white lights.

Nancy, to her surprise, found herself in the back seat of her mother's car. The hiss of the tires over the smooth tarmac was lost under the static bursts as Kate frantically transmitted what was perhaps to be her final message.

"Shit," she swore frantically, noticing the taillights in the review mirror, not seeming to notice her adult daughter in the backseat.

Nancy waved, reaching out a hand to touch her mom's shoulder, hoping somehow that she could feel it, only to be truly surprised when her hand passed straight through her mother's body, as if she were nothing more than the air itself.

"What is that? Mom?" she whispered, her voice cracking. She fought back the tears welling in her eyes. "Mom, can you hear me? Talk to me!"

Nancy craned her neck behind to look. "Oh, no…" she croaked hoarsely. "No, no, no…."

Kate Drew was frantically dialing a number. "Carson?" she shouted, her voice frantic and desperately trying to control her tears. "Get Nancy on the phone, right now. Both of you!"

There was a momentary pause, as Carson obliged on the other end. "Nancy? Carson? I—I just wanted to tell you that I always loved—"

Nancy let out a scream as the car rammed into Kate's, veering it off the road, the sound of crunching metal and screams ringing in her ears. The car had flipped so many times that Kate had become disoriented before she even sustained the concussion that had her drifting in and out of consciousness. Kate Drew was fleetingly aware of the bloody taste on her tongue, but she couldn't figure out what it was.

At times, Kate's eyelids fluttered and she thought she must be home in bed because it was so dark. Then why so cold, and why the sound of rain on metal? At the last second, she jumped. Her body hit the hood of the car and she screamed. Her bones, muscles, and joints felt like they were being crumbled and smashed into a tiny box. Her lungs contracted with such force that she was afraid they'd fold into themselves. If she strained to hear, she could hear Carson's frantic screaming on the cell phone. Struggling to reach it with bloodied fingers, she let out a sharp cry of pain as a black boot stepped on her hand, crushing her fingers.

"KATE!" bellowed Carson's voice, sounding panicked and well close to tears. The figure in black noticed, and stepped on the phone, breaking it, watching in satisfaction as the phone shattered in a million pieces.

"I hope you've made your peace, Mrs. Drew," growled the man, his thick Russian accent evident. A member of the terrorist group her organization, Cathedral, fought against, this man was an agent of Revenant. "Because that's all the time you have for. You did this. Not I. You should have listened to our warnings and stayed out of this, stayed home with your family. Now it is too late. Because of you, your family suffers."

Then he shot Kate Drew in the chest.

"NO!" screamed Nancy, still struggling to clamber out of the wreckage that had once been her mother's car. By the time she made it over to the side of the turnoff where her mother lay, gravelly wounded, the Revenant operative had fled. He had killed her mother and gotten away with it. Nancy sobbed as she cradled her mother's head in her hands, not caring if her mom could feel it or not. She had never experienced a grief this bad before. She knew then that it all started now, when she had lost her mother, her world, and her hero. It snuck up on her quietly and took her under in its arms in an instant. Every memory she had of Kate played like a song in her head, like one of her piano songs she'd been trying to teach Nancy how to play, repeating itself for what felt like forever.

"No, no, no don't do this to me, Mom! Don't go, please don't go, just remember who you are!" she wept, her tears streaming down her face.

If the house or Ned's spirit could somehow hear her, she needed some answers. "Why show me this?" she shouted, her tears still pouring down her face, the floodgates opened, showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. "WHY?" she screamed. No answer. Of course, she got no answer. She turned back to Kate, dying in her arms. As she looked at her mother's corpse, watching the life force slowly drain from Kate, Nancy knew she was lost, mostly because she lost a big part of who she was, the day she had lost her mother. She could not get this part back and she wanted it as bad as her life depended on it, but no, her mother was gone, vanished.

At first, Nancy thought grief was something bad that took you ten feet under, but soon she realized it was just the price she had to pay for loving someone. "I—I miss you, Mom," she managed to choke out in between her tears. "I could write a million letters, each one the same as the last in sentiment and cadence. They stay the same, only the word arrangement changes. It boils down to one thing. I miss you. You should be here. Ultimately, no one knows if that is selfish or not and even if it is, to hell with the rest of the world and their opinions. You should be here. I miss you. Your blue eyes, beautiful smile, torn mind, and kind, tortured soul. My heart is missing a piece, a part that keeps it from working correctly. When will I let go?"

The answer was simple. She couldn't. Nancy couldn't help but wonder if this was somehow her fault. If her mom hadn't tried to call her and her father, she might not have crashed the car.

"This is my fault," she choked out. "I did this."

The house seemed to whisper back to her.

_Yes, you did._


	12. Chapter 11: Fated to Meet

Nancy continued barreling through the labyrinth of the basement, wondering what she had gotten herself into now. She made a mental note if her and Frank got out of this alive to revisit the idea of them ever taking a vacation again, when all it seemed to end up in is yet another mystery that needed solving, and this time, it involved a fight for their lives, perhaps even their souls. What she knew of the killer inside the house, he considered himself a religious man, a messenger of God, perhaps, so she had to tread carefully. She could see a shadowy figure up ahead and the young detective flattened herself up against the wall, prepared to duck into another room to avoid being seen. Nancy drew in a breath and held it, hardly daring to breathe, and let out a sigh of relief when she saw a flash of purple and blue. "Sonny!" she whisper-hissed through clenched teeth. "Over here! Sonny!" She waved.

Sonny jumped, turning around with a furtive look on his face, his kind eyes terrified behind his purple-rimmed glasses. "Nancy!" he whispered, breathing a sigh of relief, taking a second to adjust his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "I thought I was going to be lost down here forever! I—I don't-where the hell are we? What the hell kind of haunted house is this? That's enough Halloween, let's get out of here!"

"I don't know, Sonny, but we're going to get out of here," she encouraged, trying her hardest not to highlight her fear. "Let's try this one," she mumbled, pulling out a bobby pin from her purse and expertly maneuvering it in the door lock. "I've opened a few locked doors in my time. I think I can get us into this one, we can hide here until we can come up with a plan to get out."

"Comes in handy at a time like this," Sonny joked weakly, his eyes darting nervously back and forth down the hallway, searching for the Morning Killer. "How the hell did he get in here?"

"I don't know," she whispered, feeling fear prick her heart like a needle. "I don't think he wants to prevent us from escaping, though. I think he wants to keep us _in_, and that's what has me worried the most. He's playing some kind of—of sick game with us, I just know it. Come on," she mumbled, swinging the door open so it creaked on its hinges. "I—I don't know how to explain it, but I saw something, Sonny, down here. It's the house…" Nancy whispered, suddenly feeling foolish. She was the first to admit she didn't believe in ghosts, but even she was having her doubts right now. Glancing sideways at Sonny, she saw his face was pale and ashen, his forehead clammy and beaded with sweat.

"What did you see?" she demanded urgently, stepping aside into the door so she could allow Sonny to enter. "You saw something too, Sonny?" The detective noticed how scared he was. "What did you see, Sonny?" she whispered, groping for the light switch on the wall, flicking it on, turning to face yet another familiar scene.

"What the hell?" shouted Sonny, looking beside himself with panic as he watched the storage closet around the two of them distort and warp until it was replaced by a scene familiar to them both. "Oh shit, oh, God, what the hell is this?"

"I think it's the house doing it," Nancy explained, feeling foolish at entertaining the very idea of a haunted house. "But I'm sure there's a logical explanation, Sonny. We're going to find it."

She fell silent and tossed her red hair over her shoulders as she and Sonny watched as the surroundings changed, the storage closet contents slowly being replaced with fancier furniture, revealing themselves in a rich office setting, the owner's desk of the finest quality mahogany, a vase of fresh flowers on the desk.

"I know this place," whispered Sonny urgently, stepping forward ahead of Nancy. "Beech Hill!"

"Beech Hill Museum, that's right!" exclaimed Nancy excitedly, wondering if the house was finally going to show her a snippet of the elusive, mysterious Sonny Joon's past. "But why here?"

She pulled back for a second to study Mr. Joon's face. It did not escape her attention that the eccentric man was suddenly looking uncomfortable. "Sonny, what did you do?" she inquired, her arms folded across her chest.

No answer from Sonny. He only swallowed hard and watched as a man in an impressive black crisp suit entered, fiddling with his tie, and took a seat opposite from Sonny, who admittedly, was also looking put together in black slacks and a bright blue-collared shirt. The older man was a handsome man in his forties, with strong features. Nancy recognized him immediately as none other than Franklin Rose.

If the museum's owner took offense to Sonny's vibrant purple and blue hair or his purple-rimmed glasses, he made no comment. "Mr. Joon, I take it?" he asked formally.

The Sonny they were watching in the chair opposite the man was younger by a few years, who nodded, his face pale and drawn. "Yes, sir."

The immaculate man regarded the younger man for a minute, shuffling his papers on his desk before setting them aside. "I've spoken to my dear friend, Carson Drew, per your suggestion. I've even spoken to his daughter, Miss Drew seems highly qualified to take over your…old position," he scoffed, repressing his urge to roll his eyes. "Why do you think she'll be a good fit?"

"There's no one better for this job than Nancy Drew, Mr. Rose, sir, it has to be her, sir," spoke up the younger Sonny. Meanwhile, the current Sonny Joon was waving his arm wildly, trying to get the apparitions' attentions, but it was no use, and he was staring at his young self as though he could not quite believe his eyes. "I...surely my family members have told you about my involvement in S.P.I.E.D when the staff called you to reference check?" he challenged.

Franklin Rose gave a curt nod and gestured with his hand, as if to say, "Get on with it."

"Miss Drew, I…she's the one who's going to help me, and I believe that one of your museum's artifacts is in grave danger, Mr. Rose. I—don't give me that look, it isn't me! Why would I tip you off to my own plot if I were going to steal it?" he snapped, smoothing his blue shirt in a moment of nervous agitation. "I—I've been following her, tracking her movements for a while now, sir, and she's the brightest and the best of the best, someone we need on our team."

"What does your…organization have to do with me? Mr. Joon, if this is another scheme of yours to attempt to reveal evidence of alien existence of life on Earth, I am afraid you are going to be sorely disappointed. I do not have the time for such games this morning, Mr. Joon, I'm a very busy man," Mr. Rose demanded hotly, studying Sonny Joon carefully, as though trying to determine if this young man was wasting his time or not.

"Someone—I don't know who—is going to make an attempt on that jade carving, Mr. Rose, I just know it. You need to upgrade your security, and you need to get Miss Drew in here for an interview ASAP," was all Sonny Joon said.

Mr. Rose cracked a wry smile, the first time he had smiled during this completely strange close encounter. "Actually, Mr. Joon, she's already here. I spoke with her over the phone and arranged for her to fly into Washington last night. She is just outside, but I am afraid you have no time to chat. Her interview with me is scheduled for three minutes from now, but you're welcome to wait outside in the lobby, where I will speak with you afterwards and as promised, I will, of course, keep you and your organization appraised if anything should come of the threat you received while working for us."

Sonny in the chair nodded mutely, rising from his chair shakily, his hand outstretched to shake Franklin Rose's hand. After a moment's hesitation, the museum owner reached out his own hand and shook it firmly, a sign of trust.

The younger Sonny made to move out the back door to avoid being seen by Miss Drew as she was led into Mr. Rose's office, but unbeknownst to Franklin Rose or to the young amateur detective; he lingered in the shadows to watch.

Both Sonny's and Nancy Drew watched, awestruck, as she watched her young self being led into Franklin Rose's office, her mouth agape.

"Sonny!" she hissed angrily, poking him on the arm. The current Sonny Joon had been rendered mute. "What is all of this? That—that was you?"

But Sonny shushed her angrily, pointing. Nancy stood next to Sonny Joon and watched the next scene before her unfold, falling silent and waited.

Nancy Drew watched as his secretary, Katie, led her younger self, around nineteen at the time she interned at Beech Hill Museum, into Mr. Rose's office. The young detective had dressed for her official interview with Franklin Rose of Beech Hill Museum in a pair of simple black pants, black and teal colored flats, a pair of Tieks, a white camisole and overtop that she wore a gray pull over cardigan with short sleeves, a black Rosetti hobo purse she'd gotten off the clearance racks slung over her left arm, her red hair pulled up in a loose bun, a few tendrils framing her thin face, and simple white studs in her ears. Perfection.

"Sir," she said cordially, extending her hand. "I've heard so much about you from my father, he says to tell you that he hopes you're doing well," young Nancy said quietly, taking a seat across from Franklin, setting her purse on the floor by her feet. "It's an honor to be in D.C."

"You like the area?" Franklin asked, pouring her a glass of water and sliding it across his desk. "I take it your flight went well and there were no issues checking into your hotel? The decision to bring you on as an intern won't interfere with your college studies, Miss Drew?" he asked, quirking his brow at the young girl over the rim of his reading glasses as he read her resume and list of credentials, her references, both professional and personal. She had passed their background check with excellence. A natural.

Nancy Drew shook her head. "No, sir. I am quite looking forward to learning about the ancient Maya civilizations and how they worked and lived," she explained, keeping her tone light and professional, though it was clear she was nervous. "I—I understand you have a monolith?"

Franklin grinned, his first genuine smile since this morning after his meeting with the board of director's. Then he remembered this was all Sonny Joon's doing, and he recollected the veiled threat Mr. Joon had received while working here, stating if they weren't careful in the days going forward, they'd regret it very much. "Yes, we do, on loan to us currently. I think you will love it. Joanna Riggs will show you the ropes. I'm afraid I have to get going, I'll be late for yet another meeting, Miss Drew, but your records are practically spotless, and you come highly recommended," he muttered, chancing a quick glance back towards the door, where, unbeknownst to him, Sonny was watching. He outstretched his hand as he rose to leave. "Welcome to Beech Hill, Nancy Drew."

The scene before them faded, Nancy had started to say something else, but whatever it was, they did not have a chance to get closer before the surroundings of the dismal storage closet reverted back to normal. Sonny had been rendered speechless, and for a moment, so was she.

"What—what the hell was that?" he croaked out hoarsely, running a hand through his dyed hair.

"Sonny," Nancy whispered, hoping her tone was calm as she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. Sonny was trembling, whether from fear or anger, she did not know. Probably the latter.

When he turned to Nancy, his eyes betrayed him. "I—I'm sorry, Nancy," he apologized profusely, wringing his hands together, slumping against the wall to the floor. "I should have told you what I was involved in from the very beginning. I'd been watching you a while now by that point, keeping tabs on your work."

"Why?" she prodded gently, knowing it had something to do with his organization, S.P.I.E.D, as she took a seat next to him, burying her head in her hands, just wanting to find a way out.

"Because I need your help," he answered simply, raising his head slightly to look her in the eyes. "No one else believes me; they think me and my grandfather crazy. My family disowns me, but if I can prove extra-terrestrials' existence, my life will have meant something. I—I don't know how to explain this," he mumbled, gesturing with an arm to the closet. "But I—I think that somehow…" His voice trailed off as he looked away, almost ashamed to look Nancy in the eyes.

"You think aliens are behind it," she finished for him, letting out an exasperated sigh as she dragged her palm down her face in frustration. "Jesus, Sonny, why me? You've been watching me for years, and I just want to know...why? Why do you want me on your side, a skeptic? I-I don't know if I believe in aliens, Sonny," she confessed, her tone pained as she looked at him. "You know that about me, and you still want my help. Why?" she asked, almost unable to bear the look of heartbreak in his eyes.

He looked as though Nancy had slapped him. "Because you're my friend, Nancy, that's why. I don't have many people in this world that I can trust, Miss Drew. And as for aliens haunting this place, yeah, I think it's more than possible aliens could be at work here, but I can't prove it. There were rumors about this house being haunted. I came here a few days ago, and though the hosts were odd, nothing was unusual about this place. Moreover, I think staying alive matters more to us all right now than the proof of alien life forces," he grumbled, sounding disgruntled.

After a moment's silence, Nancy nodded. "I agree," she said, rising to her seat and brushing her hands on the skirts of her dress. She leaned her head against the door, straining to hear for anything, a sign, a sound, anything of life. "I don't hear anything," she whispered, carefully turning the doorknob. "I think it's safe!" she chirped to Sonny, throwing the door open and finding herself face-to-face with Dan. "Damn it!" she swore under her breath, taking a faltering step backwards, preparing to fight if she had to. She didn't want to, she hoped that it wouldn't come to that, that he would have calmed down by now, but one look at his face was more than enough for Nancy.

He was fuming, his face practically red with anger. "You think you can run from me?" he shouted, ignoring Sonny's violent protests as he grabbed Nancy by her wrist, dragging her along despite her screams and her repeated hits to his other arm in a desperate, frantic attempt to escape. "I don't think so, you, you're coming with me!" he snapped, ignoring Nancy's screams.

Nancy dared to glance behind her back towards Sonny, who was standing in the hallway, shell-shocked and seemingly torn by the desire to run after her and follow them, or go get help. "Sonny!" she called back, pleading. "Find Frank!" She did not know whether he had time to agree or not, she did not see it as Dan yanked her violently forward and back into the basement's darkness. _Oh, God_, she thought, trying not to panic. _Alone again, on my own with this man. Now what am I supposed to do? Do I talk to him, try to distract him, or try to escape? _Nancy pushed her face closer, her mind ordering her body to fall in line. Retreat would be a disaster, a show of weakness, an inlet for Dan to surge through. Nothing in her face betrayed her fear; it was a mask of defiance and surety, that's why she was the leader most of the time. Her fear would need an out; of course, she wasn't going the way of the other victims of the Morning Killer. However, there was a time and a place for her fear, and this sure as hell was not it. _I have to do this, for Frank, if not for me_, she thought. If she strained to listen, she could have sworn she heard her husband speaking to her somehow.

_Stay strong, Nance. We can do this._


	13. Chapter 12: Fly Closer to the Sun

A/N: I'm super big on visuals when it comes to my characters. For Tino, I envision someone like maybe John Travolta in his younger days, or even Alex MacArthur in his prime, he played the greaser mechanic in Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach," which I admittedly listened to while writing this chapter. Lori is a little bit harder, but I'm thinking Evan Rachel Wood, esp. ever since she chopped her hair off into the short pixie. If you had to cast an ND movie, who would you pick to play the characters?

* * *

Toni Balducci was in shock, he recognized that. His hand constantly drifted to his hip, checking to ensure the safety of his gun was safe, in case that freaking psycho walked back in here and tried to kill him too. He had killed the old woman, _that witch_, he thought, still feeling shell-shocked as he wandered aimlessly through the huge house. It definitely seemed bigger on the inside. Just like that sci-fi show Lori used to demand he watch with her when they were dating, what was that show called, and the thing they traveled around in to get from place to place? "Doctor Who, that was it, yeah, Doctor Who, and—and the thing they drove was the Tardis, that's what the freaking phone booth is, the freaking Tardis, man, bigger on the inside, just like this damn house," he grumbled, feeling momentarily proud and wished Lori were here, she would be pleased that he'd actually remembered this time. For just a moment, a guilty pang pierced is heart as visions of his ex-girlfriend lingered in his head.

"Good thing she's out of my life, she doesn't need to be here to see this shit. Lori if you were here, I've no doubt all you'd be doing is cowering in the corner, crying and whining about how you want someone to save you," he snapped, violently shoving aside thoughts of Lori aside with an irritable wave of his hand as he tried one of the doors, found it unlocked. He poked his head through, hoping he could find something—anything—to use as a weapon as a means of defending himself. "I gotta get the hell out of this shithole and back to a civilized Chicago, you hear me, asshole?" he shouted.

Tino turned to look behind him and let out a startled yelp. It felt as though he had passed through an icy shower, like touching arctic air, as the room in the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. Like bathing in a tub full of ice cubes, suddenly he was chilled, having every warm feeling and thought sucked out of him.

"What the hell is this shit?" he groaned, not sure, if what he was seeing was real. "L—Lori?" he croaked, his voice suddenly failing him. "Is it you?" he managed, not sure if he was dreaming. "Lori, am I freaking dreaming, right now? It's...it's that food they served us. Yeah, that's it, this is just some weird bout of food poisoning giving me hallucinations," he mumbled, knowing full well he didn't believe himself. "I-I'll wake up somewhere, and this will all be a dream. You'll see. A really bad dream, Lori."

At first, the apparition was no more than a chill in the air, a shimmer of mist, diffuse. Through the furniture and the wallpaper with the rising damp became slightly out of focus, like a poorly taken photograph. It was not until Tino closed the door behind him that it congealed into a form, the form of Lori Girard, only able to see the whites of her eyes, her skin almost translucent, a silver skin and the smile of a predator. Her clothes were odd, stained with blood. Real blood was nothing like movie blood, just as real death was nothing like movie deaths. There was no amount of horror that could prepare a person for seeing the life flow ebb from another, the hopelessness, the tearing at the soul that was the departing of the other. That's how it had been for Tino, when he'd been hit by something fallen from a building. One minute he was outside on the curb sidewalk buying a hot dog with mustard for lunch from the vendor, and the next he was cradling Lori Girard's head in his hands, his palms stained crimson with her blood, trying to keep her skull in one piece while onlookers screamed and called for an ambulance._ You did this to me_; she seemed to say, not needing to say a word._ I died because of you_. It was in her lifeless, soulless eyes.

For a moment, all was silent, and then the telltale click of the door locking. Tino Balducci froze. He took a step backwards. Then the ghoul—Lori, he had to keep reminded himself. Lori, Lori, this was Lori; she spoke to him, not with the voice of her soft tones as he remembered when they used to date, but with the raspy voice of a smoker. "Have you come to play with me, Tino?" Lori's grin became a snarl, baring teeth like a wolf, and she drifted closer with even taking a single step forward. Tino opened his mouth to scream, but all that came out was a rasping laugh. If this is how he was to die, then so be it. He remembered the last time he saw Lori, how horribly they had parted ways…

* * *

The park bench had been exposed to the elements for many seasons, likely older than Tino was. It had come to resemble driftwood, the bright tones of its once fresh state had become a somber brown of sorts, but still beautiful. The detective sighed, running his fingers over the swirls in the wood grain, being so close to the water; it was likely just as infused with salt from onshore breezes and the wintry gales that made the air taste strangely of brine on his tongue.

Tino turned to sit, feeling the slight give in the wood, any creak being lost beneath the sound of the water that it faced. He sat, not with the impatience of one waiting for a bus, but with the feeling of one savoring the moment. He found the wind tousle his dark hair and his black leather jacket, cool, refreshing, and let his eyes fall on the riverbank, on the horizon. Checking his watch and sighing, he still had a few minutes before Lori would show up to plead her case, for what had to be the fifth time. He wondered how many had sat in this very spot and what their emotions were, perhaps some were newlyweds in love, some confused teenagers searching for meaning, some old folk come to remember a loved one who's passed. He was none of those things, at the beginning neither of his life nor at the end, but old enough to cherish moments instead of wishing them away. Tino stifled a groan, taking a sip of his scalding hot coffee, wincing as it burned the taste buds off his tongue as thirty-year-old Lori Girard approached, gingerly sitting down on the bench next to him, her black pencil dress neat and crisp, her black flats simple, her black Time and Tru hobo purse she'd gotten from Walmart in the clearance rack slung over her shoulder. Lori frowned as she plunked her cell phone back into her purse and sat next to him.

It was clear since her father had cut her off from his credit cards and she had taken a desk job in the city as a receptionist for a big law firm to support herself, her tastes in clothing had changed in the last two years. No longer able to continue shopping at the elite stores she'd once favored, now she frequented places like Kohl's or TJ Maxx and shopped for discounts, making the best of her situation, and Tino was relatively pleased to see she was doing well for herself, at least that's what he ascertained. No longer did she get her coffee daily from Starbucks, instead now choosing to make her own, except on Friday's twice a month when she'd treat herself. For the most part, she now cooked at home instead of going out to eat, and she rarely had friends over, most of her "friends," were only in her life due to her father's money. Lori quickly learned who her real friends were. She had her own apartment, as he had seen for himself the other night when she invited him over for dinner after she had gotten her stuff all moved in and settled. The dinner had inevitably led to more after they had kissed, neither of them knowing how it had happened or who had started it first. One minute they were enjoying their dinner on the patio of her apartment, next minute he was reaching across the table kissing her, and well, who could blame him? He needed it, wanted to do it. That little action had led to more, ending with him staying the night, of which he was happy to do, and a promise from her that she would call him to arrange a date for them. She wanted to start over, start fresh, now that she was building a new life for herself, something which he had agreed to eagerly. He missed Lori in his life, her laugh, her smile...

Tino had hoped she would call. Here they were, two months later, and she hadn't called or texted. He figured it had been a one-off, and she didn't want to see him again. Tino wouldn't blame her if that was the case. He didn't exactly have the best track record when it came to keeping a girl, but with Lori, it was different. He wanted to try harder, for her. Chicago detective glanced at his girlfriend, who was looking like she had not slept an ounce. For a moment, he startled, and he knew by the look in her eyes that she had seen him do it. He sighed, setting his coffee aside. Tino could almost see the cool breeze on her neck where there should have been her hair. Her golden locks were now gone, cut brutally short in a very short pixie cut that looked like someone had taken a mower to her head, her bangs falling wisps and stray strands to just above her eyebrows. Clearly, her stylist had gotten a little scissor happy, though he knew that was not the case. His girlfriend had done this to herself, all of it. She had been upset when she had. Parts were longer than others were, and other tufts were so short that they stuck up in clumps. Her face was thinner, gaunt, suggesting she was not eating as much as she ought to be, and there were dark circles underneath her eyes. A mess. Lori Girard was a hot mess, and he had a feeling he was the root cause of it all, somehow, some way.

Lori Girard noticed him looking, the corners of her mouth turning up in a wry, sad smile. "I know, that's why I didn't call you, Tino," she whispered, reaching for her own coffee cup and taking a sip, tucking a stray wisp of her blonde pixie behind her ears. "I—I didn't want you to see me like this, Tino. I—I know I'm a freaking mess, T." Lori looked away for a moment, reaching up a thin hand to do her best to smooth her blonde hair, tousling slightly in the spring breeze.

"Guess that's why you tried so hard to stay away," he teased, hoping to make light of how poorly she was feeling, and then immediately feeling like shit after, seeing how her smile fell. "You sounded desperate on the phone when you called. What's up, Lori? What can I do? You..." Tino hesitated, his voice trailing off, but he couldn't lie. "You're not looking too good these days, Lor. Something's up, you're not sleeping, I can tell. What is it? Is there anything I can do? I..I shouldn't have started what I did the other night when I came over, but...if you want to take a chance on me, well, I wouldn't say no to a fresh start, Lori. It...it was fun, wasn't it?" he asked, sounding hopeful.

Lori fell silent, regarding her boyfriend for a moment with a careful eye, as if trying to convince herself she could trust him. "Yeah, fun," she said, managing a weak laugh. "Tino, we gotta get it together, T. No more fighting, no more one night stands. I need you to be _with_ me, if you get me? You feel me? I—I need your help, Tino. I—I'm pregnant. Two months along, Tino. You remember that night you came over? Yeah. You do. You're the father by the way, but who else would it be? I haven't been with anyone one else since Copper Gorge. It's always been you," she whispered, biting her lip and taking a sip of her own coffee. Without waiting to be asked, she swiped his hot dog and took a bite, handing it back to him as she ate. "I've been working harder, most of my paychecks are going towards savings to save up for when the baby gets here, hospital costs, things like that. I talked to Daddy, of course, he's furious with me that I got pregnant and I'm not even married, but I'm going to keep it, Tino. I don't want to get rid of it. What...what are you thinking, Tino?" she whispered, biting her lip and suddenly looking fearful as she shifted her purse to her other arm, her stance prepared to bolt and flee if he had another one of his outbursts. She had seen his temper firsthand for herself, though he'd never once laid a hand on her.

Tino stared at his girlfriend, running a hand through his dark hair in anguish. "Oh, God," he moaned, turning away from her. How could this have happened? Oh, of course, he knew _how_ it happened, but they had been careful. Or so he thought. "Lori, I—I can't do this to you, you know my line of work is dangerous, I can't bring a kid into this world! What kind of father would I be to our kid if I get myself killed? No, I—I can't, Lori, I'm sorry." Tino exclaimed, almost violently, but then his anger had passed. Letting out a deep sigh, he turned back to his girlfriend, and took her hand in his. "Forget I said that, it—it was the panic talking, I guess I just…thought I'd never have kids, you know? Not with what I do for a living, Lori," he mumbled, now sounding ashamed of his outburst. He lifted his chin to meet her gaze. "If you had to, if there were no other way, would you really marry me, Lori? Would you even want a fuck up like me for your husband, the father of our kid, honey? I know I wouldn't," he groaned, ashamed of himself.

Lori was looking stunned, at a loss for words. After a moment, her gaze drifted downward to her hands, still being held by Tino. She looked back up to her boyfriend for a moment, shock and outrage finally registering on her face and in her eyes. She wrenched out of his grip, disgusted. "You kidding me right now? Are you joshing me? What you just said to me, Tino, it hurt. It hit me hard. Your words are like nails and hammers breaking my fucking heart apart. The first day didn't even feel real. A nightmare come true, maybe. I found myself wanting to wake up. But that never happened. I cried and cried. I was alone. Completely, utterly alone, without you. Who will hold my hand? Who will surprise me with hugs? Who will tell me they love me and call me beautiful? Not you. Not anyone anymore. I now lack that someone who had been with me for over a year. That same someone who promised me a forever only to leave when things became too hard. And now you're gone. Soon enough you'll forget about me. You will forget me the way you forgot all those other girls. You know all the ones who you most likely made similar promises to. Did you cry at all? Did it hurt you at all... when you said you weren't happy anymore? When you said you didn't love me anymore? Why did you ask my best friend to help you end things? You let me buy you food. You let me drive you home. You let me love you that night. The night before it all. You kissed me that night. You told me you loved me that night. Did you lie? Or were your feelings able to fade so quickly? You're a coward. A coward that I should hate. I should hate you. I should be angry with you, but I can't. I'm worried for you... I wish the best for you. I just want you to have happiness again, even if that means I have to sacrifice my own. I would have done anything for you, you know? I loved you. I wanted to be the very best for you. I was the very best for you, but my best wasn't ever enough to satisfy you was it? Maybe that's what hurts the most. I should have known as much!" she snapped, grabbing her purse and turning to leave, the color in her face draining. "Daddy was right about you, Tino, you're a no good rotten shit for brains detective! Trash! I hope you choke!" she bellowed, storming off, but not before flipping him the bird. "You'd make a horrible husband let alone a father if this is how you treat your pregnant girlfriend, Balducci!"

Tino didn't bother to go after her as she stormed off, leaving him alone in the park bench with his coffee and hot dog with mustard. Not even a week later, he had been walking to her apartment to go see her and apologize, and offer to marry her if that was what she wanted, when she'd jumped to her death from the top floor.

Tino watched, horrified, as the apparition of Lori's ghost showed him that memory, of him cradling her body on the sidewalk, screaming for the ambulance, tears rolling down his cheeks at the guilt, at what he did. "Holy shit," he moaned, feeling his tears coming again as he stared at Lori's now-live corpse standing in front of him. "It—it was all my fault, Lori. I'm so sorry, I—I never meant to—to hurt you," he stammered, blubbering through his thick stream of steady, flowing tears. "I—if you want to kill me, I fucking deserve it!" he shouted, hating himself. He caught sight of his reflection in a mirror nearby.

_What kind of man am I? A fucking monster. I killed my own girlfriend and kid_, he thought, as in a fit of rage; he drew his fist back and punched the mirror, his knuckles bleeding as the glass shards shattered into a million pieces at his boots.

Tino was not even surprised to hear the Morning Killer's voice behind him anymore as he spoke, almost seeming to whisper into Tino's ear. He felt the man's hand on his shoulder. He flinched only once, but did not dare to turn around. He stayed rooted to his spot, frozen and unable to move.

"You know what happens when a man refuses to be controlled by his fears?" hissed the killer into Tino Balducci's ear. "He must face them. You blame yourself for her condition," he pointed out, his eyes still fixed on Lori's corpse. "It's your fault that she killed herself and your unborn baby. You were too busy enjoying your spoils as cherished detective of the slums of the streets of Chicago, Mr. Balducci. You're like Icarus, you know," the Morning Killer mused, wrapping a gloved hand around Tino's throat and holding it there, almost sounding thoughtful. "You flew too close to the sun, and it burned you," he snarled, glowering at him as the killer's gaze drifted towards Lori's ghost, who still stood still, watching the distraught detective. "Well, guess what? You'll get your chance to escape again, but don't fly so close to the sun this time."

The Morning Killer spun Tino around so he was facing him. His face still concealed by that horrible tin mask he was wearing and his black trench coat, it made it impossible for the detective to discern any kind of details of the man's face, who he was, any distinguishable birth marks, let alone his voice. No, he was a ghost. He held out a knife to Tino, who took it, still not sure what the man wanted Tino to do with it.

"Kill the ugliest, Tino," he instructed, turning his back. "Kill the ugliest, and I'll let you live. You will be able to escape the sun's burning if you do. Kill the girl, and I'll let you live, a free man, Tino," he called back coldly, his form retreating.

_Oh shit, oh, God, oh, hell, I don't like this_, he thought wildly, turning to face Lori again, only to find she'd vanished, leaving him alone yet again. He knew the Morning Killer was talking about Nancy. Who else could it be, he had killed the old woman and she was the only other girl in the group. "Lori, what I did to you is my fucking fault, and I'll never forgive myself. I got you and our kid fucking killed, because I was too much of a coward to man up and be a father and a husband to our kid and you," he whispered, reaching up his trembling bleeding hand to study it. Tino Balducci would be lucky to get out alive.

This time, he just had to make sure he did not fly so close to the sun.


	14. Chapter 13: Always Ask Why

A/N: I wasn't originally going to give the MK a back story, thinking he didn't need one, and I'm certainly NOT going to make him empathetic, he's definitely a Type A Violent creep, but since I'm a huge fan of Criminal Minds and a bunch of other crime shows, wouldn't seem right to just have this mysterious guy going around killing people without at least knowing why he does the things that he does. For those who are curious, I modeled the MK after James Ransone, for those who don't know who that is, if there are any Stephen King fans here, he played the adult version of Eddie Kaspbrak in the new IT Part 2 movie that just came out. :)

* * *

The Morning Killer knew the girl would eventually make a move for her husband, so he decided to go after Frank Hardy next. He had killed the old woman. The two hosts of the house, Alice and Todd, knew what they had to do if they wanted to survive the night: Bring him Nancy Drew, alive.

He wasn't too concerned with Balducci, that hotshot Chicago detective. He knew types like him, they were all the same. Facades of false bravado, but inside, they were just gutless pigs. Cowards. Tino Balducci would be dead before dawn, he was counting on it. Either he would off himself or he would finish him off, one way or another. The Morning Killer pulled off his mask for a second, having stepped outside via the attic window and out onto the rooftop for some air.

He lifted his face to the rain. His grandmother always used to tell him that God was in the rain. If the raindrop is one it is millions, cascading from a black, tumultuous sky as the thunderstorm raged on, showing no signs of letting up any time soon. If anything, the storm was only intensifying. "Good," he grunted lowly. "Gives me an excuse to keep them in, not that they'd risk going out in this." He almost laughed, and thought better of it.

As he sat cross-legged on the roof, the thunder seemed to crack the air, as if the very heavens might split apart. It rolled like the ash of a volcano, becoming a rolling booming rumble. It declared to all the raw power of nature and gave fair warning of the wrath that was to come.

It was nights like this that he cherished the most. The weather mirrored his heart: chaotic, angry. Life had taken away the only thing he ever cared for, the one woman who might have dared to change him and his ways, God had taken his wife from him, and so, he killed God. He pulled out the only thing of hers he had left, her wedding ring he wore on a chain around his neck, never daring to take it off. If she were here, he would stop this insanity, but he could not seem to quell the voices in his head, telling him to kill. It was remarkable, really, how much the Drew woman looked like his Helen, just a different color hair, but they had the same face, different color eyes, though. In addition, she even sounded like her a little bit. Maybe that is why he liked her so much. Oh, he knew he was flattering himself, she would still have to die, it was the rules of his game, and no one cheated in his game. They all played by the rules in his house. House Rules. He could still hear her voice, even though he had not seen her in years. He could still remember the stupid things she used to say, all those lame catch phrases. What did they even mean, anyway? Helen still haunted him in ways he could never explain, never shake. He gave her his heart for free, but that shouldn't have made it worthless. It was priceless. There was a difference, a huge one. Swallowing hard, he slipped the ring on its chain back underneath his shirt to protect it from the elements. The Morning Killer closed his eyes, but that did not stop the memory from coming. He could still see her, could still smell her perfume. Everywhere he went, so did his wife…

* * *

The killing part was his least favorite; it was a necessary chore rather than a pleasure. He had watched CSI repeatedly to analyze the best way to not leave a trace of himself but after watching so much violence, he found himself too fired up to think straight. Instead, he went right out and offered another little thing a ride in his truck, a Pomeranian puppy riding on the passenger side to lure them in. Once inside they were off to "the vets," his barn in on the outskirts of town. He dragged them in by their ponytails; they always had to have one, and locked the doors. He had so very many fun games to play with them, so much better than all those lame horror movies. By the end of it, they were almost relieved to go into the pit with the puppy and feel the cool earth fall on top of their skin. Mostly they did not even raise a hand to guard themselves. Never once has they died from his "fun," after all, he did not intend to be a murderer. Mommy would not like that, would she? No, no she absolutely wouldn't. He had been taking a break from "work," trying desperately to cleanse himself of his sins, be a better man and ignore his voices.

He hadn't killed in well over six months, something of a record for him. It was amazing, really. But the temptation was always there.

At thirty-six, he was handsome enough on the streets, he could pass for anyone. No one had ever suspected, and no one knew about the knife he carried in his jacket's interior pocket.

The knife had been idle its entire life. No doubt a blade such as that had cost a small fortune, one gladly paid by the old man who spoke voluminously of their history, properties and makers to his dinner guests. He had slipped the whole thing, box and all, into his jacket pocket and left. He had only come for the knife, not pricy paintings or antique silver plates. No. He wanted it for his purpose, not its resale value. In the next week, this piece of art would fulfill its deadly promise. Only such a knife would do.

The girl sitting outside the café every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, taunted him like clockwork with her bewitching beauty when she would come those nights, always the same time, six o'clock sharp, and work on her laptop or bring a book, sitting outside the café under the umbrella, enjoying the cool spring air of Massachusetts, and he didn't even know her name. But he would. He would learn her name, and then she would understand why it was so important to him to kill her with something so exquisite, but it was, very much so. He had already decided to tell her its history before ending her life and his torment all at once.

Steeling himself, he could see her now. Her back was facing him as she stood in the café's line, ordering something to take out to her usual table, no doubt, where she would sit for the next two hours before packing up all her things and heading for her home, a simple apartment just around the corner only a few blocks from here.

"Thanks," she mumbled to the cashier at the front, turning around and shooting him a brief but dazzling smile, and for a moment, he was confused. All thoughts of killing this woman fled.

It was now the furthest thing from his mind. All he wanted to do was get to know her better. He paused, his brain screaming at him to follow her, his dark thoughts slowly creeping into his brain, but he irritably waved them away, earning a quizzical look from the cashier behind the counter. "Can I help you, sir?" she asked, frowning slightly, her brows knitted together.

"Uh, no thanks, I'm just…leaving," he stammered, quickly bolting before any more questions could be asked. The last thing he needed right now was to draw attention to himself. _This is a new city, blend in, blend in_, his conscious scolded him.

He found her outside, at her usual table, a donut in her hand, and a cup of coffee in the other as she poured over the latest pages of her book, a thriller by the looks of it. He smiled, taking a breath and tapping her on the shoulder.

When she turned and shot him that confused little half-smile, cautious but still friendly enough, he almost lost it. She raised her eyebrows at the stranger, wanting to know what he wanted.

"You…" he started to say, but words were failing him. Finally, he sighed, holding out her wallet that he had stolen from her open purse on her shoulder while she had been standing in line in front of him so he could "return it," thereby giving himself an excuse to introduce himself. "I think this is yours? You were in line behind me, miss, and you left it on the counter," he explained, holding out the beautiful woman's wallet, a black little wallet patterned with angry llamas wearing scarves. Quirky and cute, just like her. This woman, whoever she was, was beautiful, with dark brown hair the color of chocolate, or an espresso, that cascaded in natural curls and waves to just below her collarbones, thick and lustrous. Her face was thin and oblong shaped, with kind brown eyes and a slender, perfect little nose, and her smile, such a dazzling white smile. Her figure was slender, petite and perfect. She wore a simple coral colored maxi skirt that seemed to flow and breathe with her movements, simple brown sandals, and a gray V-neck t-shirt that the woman had knotted at the end and tucked into her skirt to give the outfit some shape and flair. Simple, perfect, and flattering, just like her. He was rendered speechless, at a loss for words to talk to her.

He could not seem to find his voice. He felt his cheeks flush hot, and his stomach was heavy. His heart pounded in his throat, threatening to break out. His eyes wandered briefly around the crowd, but hers stayed locked onto him. How many stupid love songs had he heard that said, "She takes my breath away?" Now that line made a lot of sense. His body numbed as he dared to get even closer, daring to take the chair opposite her. At last, he found his voice. "You forgot it."

The beautiful brown-haired woman blushed and when she reached out to take it from him, the tips of her fingers lightly brushed against his, leaving trails of sparks in their wake. He could tell she took good care of them. Her nails were clean, short, and painted a light pale pink, and a clear glaze. "Thanks," she mumbled gratefully, when she spoke her voice was quiet and kind, with a slight Boston accent. Charming. "My mom said I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached to my neck, so thank you for returning my livelihood to me. Most of my whole life is in this wallet, sir," she joked, shooting him another dazzling smile.

"Glad I could help, ma'am. You uh…you come here a lot?" he said, feeling the corners of his mouth tug into a genuine, real smile, perhaps for the first time since he was sixteen. He gestured with his hand to her laptop and her book. "You go to school in the area? How old are you?"

"No, I just come here to work sometimes," she said, brushing a lock of dark hair back behind her ear. "I'm a fiction writer. I can't write at home, too many distractions since I live with my ailing mother and my brother, so I come here where it's quiet." She glanced over at her laptop, seeming to struggle against the urge to brush off this stranger or keep talking. For better or worse, she chose to keep talking, and shut her laptop case. "What's your name?" she asked him at last.

He hesitated. This was, after all, a new place, and if his gut feelings about this woman were right, maybe this one would finally be the One, who could change his ways and his heart. A chance to finally escape his upbringing and start over. But he couldn't risk telling her his real name, not yet. It would ruin everything. "Sam," he said at last, outstretching his hand across the cafe's little round table for her to take.

After a moment's hesitation, she bit her lip, her quizzical brown eyes drifting upwards to meet his own. Finally deciding she could trust him, this man who had so graciously returned her wallet to her, when he could have just as easily walked off with it and committed fraud, seemed like a kind enough man, one worth getting to know.

She took his hand and shook it. "Helen," she whispered shyly, signaling the start of something new, something foreign to both of them.

That was how he met his wife.

* * *

Jolted out of the memory by a crack of thunder, the Morning Killer startled, staring down at his hands, wet from the rain. When he lifted his hands to study them, they were trembling. He clenched his eyes shut and lifted his face to the rain, letting the rain intermingle with his tears.

He had lost his Helen to cancer when she was only thirty-three years old. To his amazement, she had gone with him when he suggested they move away from the area after a steady six months of dating. She went with him, and they had made a life for themselves, a little house in the suburbs. His voices had disappeared whenever she was around him, for which he was eternally grateful. They had been married for three and a half years when the breast cancer took her life. God had seen fit to take his wife from him. Death was not kind. The Morning Killer knew that. It snatched where it could, taking people like his wife who were far too young, far too good. It did not pretend to care; it did not pretend to distinguish. The hooded vale of death had hung over the world for a long time, always threatening. It had never touched him quite as close as it did the day his wife died. Death had ripped away a part of him when the Angel of Death had come for Helen, the part of him that was the most loved. _Her_. Now, sometimes, the Morning Killer would sit staring for hours, especially during times like these when his game was afoot and there was little else to do but wait for the time to run out. His face sunken in and haunted, his mind cold and empty. The more the years went on, the more his town seemed to become more and more like him. Many were snatched away, and those that were left would wish it were they. The world had gone cold, because of the plague that was death, and war. He had taken it upon himself once Helen died to take up the mantle of God's work, delivering unto Him God's personal favorites and the sinners straight to Hell's gates. The Morning Killer knew God had brought him a special one when his attentions were drawn to a little town in Illinois, River Heights, and Miss Drew's name continued to pop up the more he learned about her.

These days, whenever he killed someone, he always asked himself, "Why?" His answer was usually the same. To end their suffering. His wife would have wanted them not to suffer, just as she had begged him to help put an end to her suffering after the endless rounds of chemo had drained her, and the cancer, that vicious son of a bitch, it just kept coming back for more, no matter how many surgeries she underwent. In the end, he had relented, tearfully injecting her with a serum in her veins that had put his beloved into a permanent sleep, hopefully at peace, never to wake up. Most, like the old woman he'd just killed, Mrs. Rutherford, were suffering from something. In her case, it was a severe case of dementia and Alzheimer's, so he'd only been too happy to put her out. In the case of the cop, his would be guilt. And as for Miss Drew, well...with her, it was different. There was no suffering in her life, at least none that he knew of. But he would soon find out what that was.

He still recollected when he first pulled up a photo of her on the Internet, how taken aback he had been. How very like his Helen she looked. Perhaps it was Helen coming home to him, in the form of reincarnation, to break him out of this horrible cycle of violence, if only she would go with him. If she would go with him, then his voices would stop, and he could start over, bury his sins and live his life, in peace, at last. He had special plans for her, oh yes, he did. She would play his game. Nancy Drew was, after all, God's Favorites, and he always delivered God's Favorites to Him. It was his destiny, his calling in life. He would make her see the truth about herself. She would see it.

"Or she will die," he spoke aloud, turning to go back into the house and see how his game was progressing. Time was up in four hours. Those left alive were running out of time, and already, the Morning Killer was looking forward to the next…


	15. Chapter 14: Swing!

Ned's ghost was tormenting Frank. It had not left him alone since it had first dared to reveal itself, and for just a split second, Frank wondered if this was how he died, and if, if this really was Ned, if he had shown himself to Nancy yet, wherever she was in this house. Frank was lost, wandering the upstairs hallways, just when he thought he would find the staircase, another hallway would seem to appear, never ending and a labyrinth.

_Almost as if the house is moving_, his mind offered.

"No, no, no, that's dumb!" he growled to no one, as he dragged his hand along the ripped wallpaper, searching for a way out, back to Nancy. "I'm going to find Nance and then we're going to get the hell out of here and go to Mohonk, like we planned, and we might just stay there, I don't think we'll come back after all this!"

Frank, after what felt like an hour, finally found his way down the stairs to the damn basement. The basement was pitch black; he was as blind as if his eyes had been gouged out. His body washed cold. He brought his fingers up to his eye sockets; they were still there, thank God. He turned his back to the stairs and tried to run up, thinking he needed to find a flashlight or a crowbar he could use as a weapon, preferably both. The flashlight to see, the crowbar to defend himself against whatever the hell was waiting for him and his wife in this godforsaken basement of this damned place. His foot fell through each step like it was a mere projection. So how had he walked down them? Frank leaned forward to touch the stair and felt a fabric fall down his arm, soft and velvety. Cold metal touched his forehead; one grope told him it was a crown, like a king's crown. He grabbed it and a mirror appeared in front of him, glowing like a television screen. It was him, broken face and all, dressed like a king from times of old, in a simple black tunic and leather pants, the crown on his head heavily jeweled. Frank swallowed hard, not sure what tricks his mind was playing on him right now.

Without sight of any knife in the mirror, the king-like image of Frank Hardy in the mirror began to bleed from the neck. He raised his hand to feel the sticky warm fluid gushing out of his throat. He screamed, the image laughed, his white teeth now stained red with his own blood.

In a blink, he was in his dirtied jeans once more, facing Ned, facing this monster, this demon. It gestured to him, sitting opposite a table like one of those fortune tellers at a carnival. "Choose a card, Frank Hardy," Ned rasped.

Frank sat opposite Ned Nickerson, who smiled at him and produced a deck of cards out of thin air. He felt the boards beneath his dried skin and practiced looking out of the corners of his eyes. Maybe he could make a plan without being detected. The glass was single pane. It would hurt like hell to be cut, but once he and Nancy were outside, they could run for the hills, away from Main Street, and call a cab, get out of here.

Then without meaning to, his eyes went to the fragile pane. At once, his neck and head became frigid, frozen. "I did warn you," Ned's ghost taunted. "Now look what you've made me do," it snapped, sounding highly annoyed. The window had turned into a wall somehow. Frank felt his head being turned to the door, the door had also become a wall. He twisted to face the stairs leading up to the rest of the house, those had disappeared. This place had become an iron grill; medieval and black. "Now pay attention, Hardy, we have a game to play. The stakes are high. They always are. Pick a card."

Ned shuffled the deck and dealt the cards, reminiscent of the way he used to do it whenever he, Frank, Joe, and Burt would all get together on Friday nights when the girls weren't available and play card games, poker, solitaire, you name it, they played it. "This is my favorite part," he said as if they were watching some sappy movie.

Frank felt his arms become free and he raised a trembling hand to his face. It was a mess. Hot tears of anger and shame at their predicament sprang from his eyes, washing some of the drying blood back into his mouth. "Take a card." Without any conscious thought from Frank, his hand obeyed, turning over the King of Hearts.

The ghoul opened his mouth, but instead of the cruel laughter coming from him, it radiated from the walls around them. "The king who holds it all dies, as great kings always do, Frank Hardy," he said coyly. "But don't worry; I'll bring you back for the next hand." Frank opened his mouth and this time, his scream came aloud and strong. His arms and legs became once again under his control and he ran about the room searching for an exit. There was a trap door he hadn't seen before. The bolt slid back as if it were only installed the day before, and he ran downwards, almost falling in his hurry to escape that he didn't see the figure in front of him as he barreled over them, topping the person off the last step and to the ground with a loud thump, louder than either one of them would have liked.

"What the hell?" he moaned, groaning as he blearily opened his eyes to see whom he had knocked over. "Oh, no, oh crap," he groaned.

In his haste to get away from Ned Nickerson, he had knocked over a girl; she couldn't have been older than eighteen or nineteen at best. What he had assumed to be a shadow took the form of the girl. He turned his head towards her as he wordlessly lifted himself up and helped her to her feet. She was fully eclipsed by the shade of the basement wall. Under Frank's brief gaze, she didn't withdraw or flinch, but neither did she step forward to be seen. Whoever she was, she stared with that look the girls these days take, one designed not to give any emotions away at all.

Though she was eighteen or nineteen, tall and willowy, she was still a child, hiding her delicate side behind a paper wall, keeping her natural smile under lock and key. It was yet another sign of violence in these parts. The tension that controlled the girl's face had always been a part of her life; Frank could tell by the way that she held herself. Her brown hair was pulled up into a loose French braid, her burnt orange maxi skirt and black t-shirt knotted at the end slightly torn and dirtied, and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheeks but she was otherwise unharmed.

"Sorry I ran into you, my name's Frank. Frank Hardy, miss. Are you hurt?" he managed to croak out hoarsely, surprised at how raspy his voice sounded. His throat was parched. She shot him a quizzical look and wordlessly handed him a bottle of water. "I—I didn't know there was anyone else down here, I'm looking for my wife, Nancy. Tall girl, around your height, red hair? Maybe you've seen her, miss?" Frank whispered.

The girl shook her head no shyly, raising a finger to her lips. She pulled out a key from the pocket of her maxi dress and motioned for Frank to follow her. "What's your name?" Frank asked, just to see if this girl talked. Maybe she was a mute.

She hesitated, seeming to decide if she could trust him or not. He guessed she must have, for she spoke up after a minute, her voice barely audible above the groaning and creaking of the old house and its floorboards. "Jenna," she whispered shyly. "Follow me, we'll find your wife."

"Oh, thank God," he breathed, relieved, as he shot a nervous glance back over his shoulder, hoping to God they were not being followed. "How long have you been here? I…the others, we—we didn't see you upstairs earlier. Do you live here? Are Todd and Alice your parents?"

"No," she answered curtly, her eyes darting in all directions, as if she too were afraid they were being followed. "Stay quiet," she instructed, not unkindly, but firm enough to enforce her intended message, holding open a door that looked like it led into yet another passageway. She locked the door behind her and pocketed the key, taking back the water bottle from Frank and slipping it into the brown drawstring flap backpack she wore on her back. "They don't know about this room," she explained shyly. "Down here for seven days, they can't find me down here." The girl who called herself Jenna fell silent and looked at Frank, who was still in shock, speechless.

"Good girl," he said at last, praising her for her ability to remain undetected for days at a time. _Nancy would be proud of this one_, he thought, and almost immediately regretted this thought at having delayed so long in searching for his wife.

"What's wrong with this house?" Frank asked after a long silence, just to keep conversation flowing. After several hours alone, he was starting to wonder if he would ever talk to a live human again. "How long have you been here, Jenna?"

"A week," she whispered, still not wanting to meet Frank's gaze as she led him down the dark hallway. "There's something wrong with this house, you know, case you hadn't figured it out already, Mr. Hardy," Jenna stated, almost matter-of-factually as she looked towards Frank. "Haunted. It's haunted, and so are Todd, Alice, and Dan."

Frank opened his mouth and then shut it again. He was aware he must look like a fish in doing this, but he could not help it. He had never even once entertained the idea that the house might be haunted, such a concept was only for the scary stories and the Hollywood movies. Nevertheless, even he had to admit, along with Nancy, there were certain events of the night that he could not explain. Such as Ned's ghost. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jenna stopped him, raising her finger to her lips and pointing to a door, where a light could be seen coming from the other side. Someone else was down here. "Over there," she mouthed. _Go_.

Frank snuck forward stealthily, careful to mind his steps, praying to God with all his might that none of the floorboards creaked and gave away his position. Once he was close enough to the door, he fell silent and listened. A man's voice, Dan's, and…_Nancy's_. She was talking to him, saying something in low voices he could not quite make out. However, it was clear by the distress in her voice that she was in trouble. "Hang on, Nance," he whispered. "Just let me think for a second. Plan, plan, I need a plan to get you out."

Once again, Jenna came to his rescue, finding an old baseball bat in the corner, and tossing it to him. "Swing," she said, her voice cracking a little.

Frank stared at the bat he held in his hands, turning it over slightly, and looked back up at Jenna. Though he just met her, and her slightly broken pattern of speech was a little "off," he knew that he liked her. A nineteen-year-old girl smart enough to hide out here alone and not be caught had her wits about her that much he knew. Jenna could have left him down here, but she had chosen to help him save his wife.

"Hang on, Nancy," he whispered. "I'm coming." Right as he had been about to plan his attack, he heard the scream tear through his wife like a shard of glass. He could hear Jenna shouting something at him, something about it being a trap, but he could not ignore that sound. Nancy was in trouble, he was her husband, and he had to save her. Frank felt his eyes widen and pulse quicken, his heart thudding like a rock rattling in its box. The scream came again, desperate, terrified, human…The blood drained from his face, before he was even aware of making a conscious decision, his legs were pounding furiously on the uneven cement of the floor, his ears straining for more sounds, more clues as to which door it had come from, there were too many. Frank had no clue as to what he would do when he got there; just that he had to get there, fast. "Save Nancy, save my wife," he muttered to himself, mostly to give himself encouragement. He wrenched open the door the light was coming from and stumbled his way in, the bat in his hands ready to strike. Nancy was there all right, but she was not alone. Ned was with her, that bastard.

"Oh, God," he moaned, realizing this was another one of the house's damn visions. He turned to leave, not wanting to witness anymore of this nightmare, but found himself face-to-face with the ghoul version of Ned, his mouth dripping blood and a fuming expression in his brown eyes.

Ned held Frank's head in his hands and swiveled him back around. "Watch," he commanded furiously. "You'll miss my favorite part, Frank," he taunted, falling silent as he watched Frank's reaction. "We're coming up on it now, just watch."

Frank squirmed in the ghoul Ned's grasp, actively shutting his eyes and trying to block it out, but he couldn't. He was forced to watch one of his greatest fears come to life again. Nancy's painted toes dig into the earth—the grass around them on the blanket in Ned's backyard was damp rather than wet and the fall leaves still had a crunch to them. As Ned thrust inward, all she could see was his face, the leaves above and the sky an inky blackness, the moon a milky crescent. Their breaths rose in visible puffs and though there was a soft chilly wind, they were warm with one another. They knew they were too old for outdoor sex in their late twenties; it really should be all silk sheets and petals, but she did not care and neither did Ned. Tomorrow, this memory would be what got them through their days, and in her old age, the reason behind her grin. Frank was grateful the blanket covered most of his wife, preserving her dignity, but it did nothing to quell the hatred he felt for Ned.

His rage and hatred intensified when he heard Nancy whisper into Ned's ear as they switched positions, her on top now, tossing her red hair over her shoulders. "Ned, I will always love you."

"You hear that?" taunted the ghoul-Ned, still maintaining his firm grip on Frank's head. "She'll always love _me_, Frank. Me, not you. You lost. This is your greatest fear, isn't it? Her choosing me over you. It's time you faced the music, she wants _me_, not you. You'll never be good enough for her, certainly can't satisfy her the way _I_ can."

Unable to stomach witnessing anymore, Frank felt the scream from deep within forcing its way from his mouth, as if his terrified soul had unleashed a demon. All he felt was anger, all he felt is that he didn't want to be friends with anyone at all, because then, he didn't have to trust anyone, it would be safer, easier to choose not to stay. Frank knew he was hiding a truth from himself, of how much this really had to do with his scars that just would not heal. His fists clenched and his teeth locked up once the sound was out, his gaze drifting downwards to the bat in his hands. _Swing_, Jenna's voice seemed to tell him. _Swing_!

So he did. Gripping the bat tightly in both hands, he swung at the ghoul version of Ned, not bothering to keep his satisfied smile to himself as he heard the sickening crunch of bones as the ghoul's nose started gushing blood. With a primal scream, he continued this battering until he was reduced to a mere pile on the floor, a bloody mess that had been his adversary. He was grotesque. Already, Ned's eyes were swollen over and bloody spit drooled from his slack jaws.

Ned Nickerson, dead or not, ghoul or not, was now as revolting as he should be, finally the outside reflected the man within. He lay foul in his own fluids. Even if the monster made it, those scars would be with it forever. With a wrinkled nose, Frank took a step backwards. It was tempting to whisper something into the demon's ear that he was broken and Frank had won, but what was the point. He would be lucky to remember his own name now. Even if it lived, its walking disfigured face would be a living reminder to everyone of what happened to those who messed with Frank Hardy's wife.

"Hang on, Nance," he whispered, clutching the bloodied baseball bat in his hands, moving back into the hallway, where Jenna stood waiting, horrified and speechless at the bat in his hands.

_Hurry, Frank_, she was saying to him. _Hurry, please.._


	16. Chapter 15: All that Remains

Nancy awoke as if it were an emergency, as if sleeping had become a dangerous thing. Her heart beat fast and there was a strange buzzing in her brain and a ringing in her ears and together they were as panic with jump-leads. Only now, her brain was as a flat battery, the exertions of the last several hours being a marathon of erratic problem-solving leading to nowhere. This nightmare demanded a solution. Dan had brought her here to this place, for reasons undisclosed, and she did not want to think of what the hell that man would do to her. Once the haze of sleep had lifted the fog from her eyes, Nancy took a second to take in her surroundings. "Another bedroom. But why?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of white and a thick tuft of white-blond hair and she flinched, wishing she had not moved.

"Shit," she whispered under her breath, turning her head slowly to find herself once again next to Dan, who continued to watch her like she were some fascinating creature in an exotic zoo inside of a cage. Nancy supposed she was still in a cage, albeit a different kind. Pure terror surged through her veins, icy daggers straight to her heart. The fear she'd felt several times before, in Glasgow defusing the bomb, in Castle Malloy, even in the ryokan in Japan to a degree was _nothing_ like this.

She struggled to move and found she couldn't. Glancing down, she repressed a tiny groan. Wherever she was, she had been carried into a basement bedroom, placed on a chair and her hands chained to a pair of old-fashioned manacles, like something from medieval times.

"Oh," was all she could muster up the energy to say. Nancy felt like the room was slowly suffocating her, the air pressing down, as if she was drowning, but not able to do a damn thing about it. She thought briefly maybe it would be better if she drowned. At least then, the nightmare would be over, but no, she had Frank to get out. As she looked at Dan, she felt a new surge of fear course through her veins, chilling her blood. They say there was nothing to fear but fear itself, yet in this world that was not true. Many things were worse than fear. The truth, for the young detective, in those words, was a warning that fear could change whom she was inside, make her compromise where she should stand firm. This house—these people—were testing her limits, pushing all her right buttons until…

"Do you like my room?" Dan asked, almost with the innocent of a teenager. He was looking proud.

"Uh…" Nancy stared, not able to formulate a response fast enough. "I—I don't know…"

Dan's smug little smile faltered and she knew immediately she had made a grave mistake.

In that moment, the quiet had become like icy drips onto her already cold skin. Nancy stopped, ears straining, eyes working on overdrive. She turned around, away from Dan for just a split second, seeing things she had never had the call to notice before. There were so many places she could hide down here, the place was a maze.

As she looked at Dan, she could not help but feel sorry for him. _What am I dealing with here? _Nancy wondered as her eyes wandered over Dan's form.

"He brought you here because of me. I told him to. Dan does whatever I tell him to," a new voice spoke up, chilling Nancy's blood. She dared not turn around. She knew who it was. The killer.

"You," she whispered through clenched teeth. She felt a muscle in her jaw involuntarily twitch as the muscles in her jaw locked into place. Nancy tossed her red hair back over her shoulders, not wanting to highlight any sign of fear to this man.

"Me. I've been waiting a long time for you, Miss Drew, did you know that, my dear?" the Morning Killer answered simply. "Do you like Dan's room? It's a very…special room, Miss Nancy. Shows you your worst fears, and your heart's deepest desires." He stated matter-of-factually, not even blinking as the room around them started to warp and distort, change like all the others. "I carried you into the basement after you passed out from exhaustion. This lighting, dim though it may be, my dear, makes your skin just sparkle and glow. I am glad I have you forever now. I would not call it obsessed, Miss Drew. I would call it destiny. You and I were fated to meet. God has chosen fit to deliver you to me, for…salvation."

Nancy shuddered, a cold chill travelling down her spine as she felt a leather clad black gloved hand wrap around her throat. Not in a menacing way, almost…tenderly. She felt her eyes narrow until they were mere slits and her temper swell to dangerous levels.

_Keep it together_, she warned herself.

"Who are you?" she demanded, fighting against her restraints. "Tell me who you are, really. Please," she pleaded, trying a softer approach, knowing aggression in most cases didn't work with the ones who were already so violent.

"Who am I isn't important," the Morning Killer retorted, almost numbly, devoid of emotion. He ripped off the metal contraption of a mask he wore to reveal a handsome face underneath.

_No one I recognize_, she thought, curious now, her fear strangely and almost worryingly so disappearing, instead replaced with a natural curiosity. Whoever the Morning Killer really was, he was a handsome man, seemingly in his early forties, a thick tuft of close-cropped dark hair that was luscious and wavy, and brilliant green eyes.

Maybe the only thing left about him that was human. The Morning Killer's eyes were hues of the forest, surrounded with dark moss. It was the kind of earthy green that revives grass after a cruel, unforgiving winter. Interwoven shades hiding the chaotic nature behind. Never before have eyes held such danger and beauty all at once. He was a wild fire; reckless, untamed, yet undeniably captivating. He was handsome, and he had charm. That made the Morning Killer dangerous.

_Stall him_, Nan, Frank's voice was telling her. _Anything to stay alive, just a little bit longer. Keep him talking. I—I'm coming for you, just hang on_.

The Morning Killer moved, and just underneath his black wool sweater, the top unbuttoned slightly just to reveal the muscular hollow of his neck, she caught a glimpse of a simple gold wedding band on a chain around his neck, telling her everything she needed to know about this man.

He had been married once, perhaps loved her with all his heart, and once she died…

"You felt like nothing," she whispered, her voice barely above a whisper. She recognized that haunted look in the Morning Killer's eyes; she had seen it in herself too many times shortly after Ned had died. She blamed herself for his death, still.

The Morning Killer noticed her look and smiled, the smile not reaching his eyes, so…lonely. Was that even the right word? Yes. Lonely. There it was. "I've been wanting to share a dialogue with you, my dear, for a long time now. I've been watching you the last ten years, Miss Drew."

"Why?" was all she was able to ask the man.

"There's a connection between "beauty" and "love," but not in the way our media would have us believe, wouldn't you agree, Miss Nancy? They tout a form of beauty that is simply aesthetic, something that could inspire lust—a thin replica of love based more in desire and conquest. It disgusts me, it really, truly does."

Nancy was rendered speechless. All she could do was stare and hope that she could find a way to break free. Even she could not guess what a man like this wanted with someone like her.

The Morning Killer continued to pace the floor of the bedroom, Dan silently watching in the corner, just like Boo Radley did in _To Kill a Mockingbird_. The resemblance between the two was remarkable, really. Nancy's gaze flitted nervously from Dan to the handsome man currently pacing the floor. He was talking more to himself than her.

"What they claim to bestow, they cannot. For true beauty comes from within, and it's only that form of beauty that can make lasting connections. True love is a unity of souls, yes?"

Nancy nodded, knowing if she spoke out against him, he would likely strike her, or even worse.

He noticed her looking and smiled at her again, catching her off-guard. His smile was genuine; almost…dare she even think this? _Kind_. Sweet.

_Don't fall for it_, warned Frank's voice. _He's evil_.

Nancy felt her breath catch in her throat as she drew in a sharp breath that pained her lungs as she felt his gloved hands play with a lock of her hair, brushing it back from her face, his fingers drifting over her collarbones. "What are you doing?" she demanded, almost angrily at him.

But he wasn't looking at her. The Morning Killer was watching the room unfold and distort, showing a hospital room as the bedroom slowly disappeared. "This was the worst day of my life," he said slowly, his voice dripping with hatred.

She remained silent, still bound to her chair. Nancy let out a tiny gasp, as she was able to get a closer look at the woman lying in the hospital bed.

For a second, she thought she was looking at herself, though with brown wavy hair instead of red, currently splayed out on either side of her like a fan. The woman's dark hair like dark chocolate or a rich espresso was thick and luscious, falling to her collarbones in gentle waves, not unlike Nancy's. Her face was pale and gaunt, dark circles underneath her eyes suggested she had not slept, maybe for days, even. Waves of heat seemed to course through her blood, a cold sweat glistening on her gaunt features. Her eyes sunken and her skin sallow, everything looked like it ached. The glass of water stared at her from the night table. She took a weak sip and plopped her head back against the pillow, deflated. The woman in the bed had cheated Death fighting cancer two times, and now she was paying the price. While her heart beats stubbornly within her chest, her pale skin was so fragile it ruptured on anything more than the softest of touches. All of her happy and healthy years were in her past; Nancy could see it in her eyes. The person of who this woman had once been was now nothing more than a shadow, still in there somewhere, locked into a body that won't quit like it should, tethered to a heart that insisted on beating despite the woman's chances of recovery being non-existent. She didn't appear to be much older than Nancy, early thirties at best. Far too young to go so soon. Whoever she was, she was suffering. The young brunette shivered violently in the freezing room. No amount of thick woolen heated blankets could warm her. Now that her stomach had stopped lurching, she merely felt bruised and acidic inside. Pulling the blanket up closer, she weakly reached for the hospital TV's remote and channel surfed, looking for anything but the Food Network channel. No food allowed right now.

Nancy glanced around the hospital room, as did the Morning Killer, all thoughts of killing her seemingly having fled as his mind as he watched his worst memory come to life again. The hospital room was as devoid of beauty as he was of hope. The walls were a simple cream color, not peeling or dirty, just cream. An old TV set hung from the ceiling. She jumped as the door opened and a woman's voice spoke up, kind and quiet.

"Well, here we are!" chirped a nurse, smiling kindly and opening the door wider, allowing the woman's husband, yup, a younger version of the Morning Killer himself, to enter the hospital room. Doctors and nurses surrounded the hospital bed, attaching IV's, heart monitors to the young woman. Her husband decided to explore the room while the other people still crowded around his wife. A window giving him a view of the world below was just beneath the TV screen. In the corner were two chairs, frayed with wear and tear. It was a typical hospital room, sparse and functional. He sat himself next to his wife and stared dejectedly up at the ceiling, fighting tears.

In his arms was a small stuffed brown bear wearing a hospital gown, one he had picked up last minute from the downstairs hospital gift shop, and a small vase of purple lavenders and lilacs, his wife's favorite flowers. He knew just by looking in her eyes, at the lifelessness there, that it was nearing her time, and he did not want her to go.

Nancy opened her mouth to ask a question and thought better of it by the dark look in the Morning Killer's eyes. A muscle in his jaw was twitching as his facial muscles had gone hard.

A coughing fit from his wife immediately caused the younger version of the now-infamous serial killer in front of Nancy to reach for her hand, trying to be mindful of the IV in her hand. "Try not to move," he cautioned tenderly. "You need to be resting, Helen."

"For what, another lifetime?" she managed weakly. "Sam, please, don't do this to me anymore…" she begged, sounding desperate. Her voice was frail and weak. "No more rounds of therapies, no more radiation. Am I here with you? It was like…dreaming. I could hear you, speaking to me. What did the doctor say? How much time do I have?"

"If only you knew what he's become," whispered Nancy under her breath, low enough so he could not hear her, but he seemed to have eyes only for his wife. "You'd be so ashamed of the things he's done, just to numb the pain of losing you."

She desperately wanted to move, but couldn't. All Nancy Drew could do was watch and wait.

The present Morning Killer had moved to the other side of the bed and was trying to hold her hand, but was failing. It was just a memory.

"Don't be afraid, Helen. I'll—I'll save you. We're nearly there, another round of therapies, and you—"

"Don't you see?" shouted Helen, tears streaming down her face. "I don't want saving! Not anymore! It's too late for me, Sam. But not you."

"But…you're dying, Helen," protested Sam, taking a moment to set the vase of flowers and the stuffed animal he had bought on the night table. "Maybe there's another way to save you."

"Sam, this isn't you. I won't let you destroy yourself anymore. I wish I could have told you sooner," she whispered, reaching for his hand. Nancy could see the plain gold band she wore on her left hand, almost eerily similar to her own.

"But I don't want you to die, Helen!" he said, feeling his voice go soft and quiet, tears misting in his eyes.

"Then let me _live_," she pleaded. "Please, Sam."

"We won't have much time. Days, maybe."

Helen smiled weakly, giving his hand as gentle of a squeeze as her limited strength could muster.

"Time never has been on our side, Sam."

At his wife's comment, brick by brick, his walls came tumbling down. The tears misting in his eyes turned the hospital room into a whirlwind of white and yellow. He sobbed into her chest unceasingly, his hands clutching her hospital gown. She held him as gently as she could, in silence, rocking him slowly as his tears soaked her chest. A tiny lapse let him pull away, blinking lashes heavy with tears, before he collapsed again, his cry of agony worsening at the thought of his beloved Helen dying. The pain must have come in waves for him, minutes of sobbing broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurling him back into the outstretched arms of his grief, to his Helen.

Nancy was rendered speechless, silent tears streaming down her face as the hospital room before them slowly dissolved, rendering her and the Morning Killer back in the strange bedroom.

Dan had somehow mysteriously disappeared.

"She died three days later," was all he said.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "That can't have been easy for you. I know what it's like to lose someone you love. I lost my mom and fiancé."

"You don't know anything about loss," he snarled, growing angry. His back muscles had tensed and his shoulders squared. "But you will."

The Morning Killer left her for a moment, the sound of something scraping could be heard being dragged across the basement cement floor. "Oh no, not you, please, not Frank, don't do this, please don't do this, let them go, but take me instead. You wanted me, so here I am. Do whatever you want to me, but let Frank and the girl go. I'll—I'll go with you, if that's what you want, but only if you let Frank Hardy live and leave here alive and unharmed. That's my deal," Nancy moaned, seeing Frank's unconscious form and another girl's being dragged in, as the killer set to work tying his arms behind a pillar near the furnace, same with the girl, who couldn't have been older than eighteen.

"I was going to kill you at first, but I can't," said the Morning Killer, almost sounding regretful. "I am your worst nightmare because I know it isn't your own pain you fear. You fear the pain of those you love the most, isn't that right, Nancy? Isn't that the essence of love? Did you think I wouldn't know? My understanding love makes my work all the greater. I never take out a worthy adversary until they cease to try. Their loved ones, however, are fair game. You remind me far too much of my Helen to let you just die, Miss Drew," the Morning Killer whispered, sounding far too calm for Nancy's comfort. He was planning something. He toyed with another lock of her hair before walking towards the front to face her, pulling up another chair and sitting right next to her, one of his hands drifting towards her lap, wandering slowly up her thigh. "I can see it in your eyes," he said, almost sounding impressed. "You're trying to remember your training. What's your training to resist _this_? Hmm?" he taunted.

"Can't say this is my first time being tied a chair," Nancy huffed, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. "What makes you think it's my first?"

The Morning Killer let out a dark little chuckle and removed his hands from her lap. "I dreamed so long of taking those you loved and savoring the moment. Only then will you really truly be mine. I dream of teaching you who the smartest one really is. The deaths of those you cherish are my academy award. I suppose I should thank you, Miss Drew, for coming into my life when you did."

"Why?" she snapped, hearing the harsh bark in her voice and cringing for showing her fear. Her eyes were fixated on the knife he held in his hands, twirling and seeming to admire the sheen of the glinting silver in the dim light of the room.

When the Morning Killer turned around, there was an unhinged look in his eyes that she didn't like.

"Because I can't lose you again, Helen!" he shouted, his green eyes watering and growing more wild. Without so much as a warning, he untied Nancy's restraints and shoved her up against the wall in front of her. It stung, and sent swells of pain through her body. The man's chin rested on her shoulder, breathing into her ear.

"What are you doing?" Nancy grunted, squirming underneath his hold, but he was too strong. "I—I know you miss your wife, but I'm not Helen! I'm not her! Doing this to me isn't going to bring her back! She—she wouldn't want you to do this, Sam, if that's even your real name! LET GO OF ME! GET OFF OF ME!" She opened her mouth to scream, when the man's lips clamped down on her ear. They were light at first, and then he bit down harder. Nancy struggled against the wall, her eyes darting back and forth, wildly searching for something, anything, she could use as a weapon or a means of distraction. The teeth turned to a tongue. It slid over the rim of Nancy's ear and caused her to cry out a little, hating herself and this situation. Two hands slid down her sides and landed on her waist, just above the knot of her maxi dress. She didn't know what to do. Nancy hoped this was all some sick joke, a cruel dream. The Morning Killer's lips moved down to her neck and nipped at the tender skin. She squirmed and shirked away from his touch, but it was no use. Nancy knew this would be bad. Her skin bruised so easily, she knew the man would leave marks that she did not want, and when Frank saw it, well, she didn't like to think what trouble his temper would get him into if the Morning Killer decided to taunt him.

If she knew his type, he would.

She let out a startled cry as she tried to bolt, making a beeline straight for Frank, but with an outraged roar, the killer tackled her to the ground, wrestling her until he flipped her violently on her back, his face only inches from hers. His fingers curled and fisted into the back of her hair. Every time Nancy clenched her eyes shut, he would scream at her, demanding she open them. She didn't want to, she closed them over and over again, anything rather than to watch his face light up with power and lust. He became angry, his force less controlled, until finally blood ran down from a cut on her forehead and she felt the rest of her body go limp as the last of her strength faded. The Morning Killer was finished with her anyways. Almost as a final taunt, he leaned in close and whispered into her ear.

"I'm going to give you half an hour to make your peace and say your goodbyes. If you don't agree to come with me of your own volition, they both die," he whisper-hissed angrily. "I lost you once; I'm not going to lose you again, Helen!" The desperation in his tone was unmistakable. He missed his wife, and now he thought Nancy was Helen somehow, through reincarnation or just a delusion. Maybe it was the house doing it to him, Nancy didn't know. She couldn't find her voice to speak to him.

It was no use. Even Nancy could not deny the striking resemblance between her and his deceased wife, but she could not make him see sense. He was past that point. Life had taken away the only thing he had ever cared about, and now all that was left of him was scar tissue and her wedding ring. Arguing with this man was pointless. Nancy could still hear his footsteps long after he had left. She caught sight of her reflection in a full-length mirror hanging on the back of the door and she winced. Battered, they called it. Such a simple word for a simple idea. Nevertheless, this was not simple. Her sense of self, once a high and proud feeling of one destined for good things, now felt as bruised as her abdomen and as broken as the mirror she sat in front of. She wiped the dried blood from her forehead and stared into her own empty eyes.

Nancy hardly recognized herself. Who was that in the mirror and why did she stay? She gazed around at the now deserted bedroom, save for herself and the unconscious forms of Frank and this teenager, at the broken and strewn possessions. Were they any different to herself?

She stifled a sob with the scuffed palm of her hand and worked viciously on untying Frank and the girl's hands from the pillars until they were both free. She sunk to the floor; Frank cradled in her arms and felt for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief. "You're alive. Oh thank God, you made it, Frank, I—I can't do this without you," she whispered, crying silently. "We have to get out of here, and I don't' know of any other way to save you than to go with him. He's going to kill us."

Being brave, at least for Nancy, was always a conscious choice. When she saw a tidal wave of fear, her feet naturally wanted her to run, of course they did. Yet, instead, she would choose to ride the wave and see where it took her. She was not a fearless person by nature, quite the opposite, but she refused to allow herself to be mastered by such a basic emotion, a primal urge. She would always trust her instincts and make the right choices, and like it or not, her gut was saying she had no other choice available.

_I have to go with him. To save you, Frank. It's the only way. I need you to understand that. For me_.

This was her last thought before she felt the needle prick the skin of her neck, and the bedroom around her went black.


	17. Chapter 16: In Your Arms

Nancy was as light as a feather. She weighed practically next to nothing. The Morning Killer, whose real name was Jaxon Price or Jax for short. However, to his wife, he had been known as Sam. He stooped, lifting her gently in his arms, her head lolled backwards and rested against his chest. He knew where to take her now. Todd had prepared his worktable in his shop for the Morning Killer to do with whatever he wanted, in the futile attempts it would allow him and his family to live. How wrong they were. They would all die, except for Miss Drew. Except she was no longer Nancy Drew. She was now Helen Price, or she would be, once he finished with her. He had a lot of work to do to make sure his wife came back to him.

"Starting with your hair, it's all wrong. But don't worry, Helen. I'm going to fix everything, you'll see. Everything's going to be all right now." he sighed, fingering a lock of it lovingly. The sounds of Alice and Todd's shouts broke him out of his reverie, his moment alone with Miss Drew interrupted as he gently laid her on the table.

"Sir!" piped up Todd's voice, sounding gruff and terrified. "We have a—a problem," he groaned.

"What?" he snapped. He turned around and wished he would not have. "What the hell happened to you?" he asked, almost sounding bored with his hosts as he stared at the gaping holes in their sides.

Todd and Alice had both been shot, no doubt the handiwork of that Chicago detective. Right as rain, another gunshot rang out and blood and brain matter splattered the door. As their limp frames fell to the floor with a loud thud, Tino stood in the doorway, with that purple and blue haired freak standing behind him, looking terrified.

"STEP AWAY FROM THE GIRL!" shouted Balducci, doing his best to put on a brave front, but it was a falsehood. The bravado didn't suit him. He'd shot on accident, Jax could tell by the way his hands shook.

"Put the gun down, Tino Balducci. Right now or I'll shoot you. Don't make me lose my temper," the Morning Killer stated calmly, not fazed by the Chicago detective's outburst, or the fact that he had just killed the house's hosts. He had done Jax a favor by doing it for him, for that, he was grateful.

If the man did not oblige by putting the gun down, he was going to have to do it himself, and his way would be much messier, plenty of blood involved. He would rather not things get violent. Yet. There would be time enough for that later. "I gave you an order." Tino's hands trembled as he struggled to hold the gun steady. Jax knew the look in the man's eyes all too well, having seen it several times in the mirror himself, shortly after Helen died. He was desperate.

Jax sighed, seeing Tino Balducci was well beyond the point of rational reasoning. With an exasperated sigh he pulled out his Cutlass from its holster, fanned the weapon once and shot Tino point black in the head. The bullet entered the hotshot detective as if he were nothing, just meat, blood, and bone, blasting a cavity in his back as it burst crimson into the coming dawn of the light of day. "Anything from _you_? No? I didn't think so. Get the hell out of here!" he shouted as he trained the weapon on Sonny Joon, the eccentric city boy with the wild hair and vibrant purple glasses. The other one, Joon, let out a startled scream and bolted. Jax scoffed and rolled his eyes, not bothering to go after him when he had work to do. The house would take care of that one.

"Good," he snapped, returning his attentions to the unconscious woman on the operating table in front of him. She was heavily sedated for now, but it would wear off in another hour or two, so he had to work fast. Miss Drew's hair would need to be fixed first.

It had taken him shockingly two hours to find the exact color and shade that Helen's hair had been. IT had required the use of his abilities as a bit of a charmer to wheedle the information out of a Sally's beauty store consultant, and with the cashier's help, he had finally decided on the box of L'Oréal Excellence Crème, a rich dark ash brown, almost the color of an espresso or dark chocolate, the store attendant had told him, promising him when he paid for the box of supplies that his wife would love it.

He set to work quickly, applying the dye mixture to her hair, taking careful meticulous care not to stain her skin or her clothes. When her hair was corrected and met Jax's needs, dried and lightly curled, then it came time for her makeup to be applied. She already wore a similar style to Helen, but Helen had worn a different shade of lipstick, and brown eye shadow on her lids. Next thing to go was her dress. Though it suited her, the dress was not something his Helen would have worn. By the time he finished, Nancy Drew no longer existed. She was Helen Price now, for better or worse.

"Time to go make your goodbyes, love," he said quietly, wondering if she could hear him somehow as she stirred gently in his arms, still groggy from the sedative he had administered. It would wear off relatively quickly. "It's all the time you have left."

_And then you're mine. I'm so sorry, Helen. For everything. But I'm going to make it up to you. You'll see_. _I'm going to make everything all right_.

* * *

Frank woke up groggily feeling like his head was pounding. "Where…what happened? Jenna!" he shouted, glancing wildly around for any signs of Jenna and Nancy. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Nancy sitting on a chair next to him, but he knew immediately just by looking at her something was wrong. Someone—presumably the killer—had drastically changed Nancy's appearance. She wasn't hogtied to a chair like he was, but he'd cuffed her hands, making it incredibly difficult for her to get out of them, given they were an old pair of old-fashioned manacles. "Shit. What did he do to you?" he swore darkly. "Nance? Can you hear me? It's Frank," he whispered.

Nancy stirred uneasily, her eyelids blinking rapidly as she woke up, bolting upright from her position. She had opened her mouth to shout, but all that came out was a dry hoarse croak. Whatever he had injected her with had affected her senses greatly. She was thirsty, and she just wanted to sleep.

"Frank," she whispered, as loud as she could. "What…?" Nancy froze as she caught sight of her reflection. "Oh, god, no," she whispered. Her red hair was gone. Sam—if that was his real name—had taken meticulous care to dye Nancy's hair and curl it gently once it was dyed. Though still quite pretty, Nancy had to admit the dark brown chocolate color was not suited for her. Her red hair was her trademark, the only reminder she had left of her mother, other than her mother's eyes, anytime she looked in a mirror at her red hair, she saw Kate. And her clothes were gone. In place of her dress, she now wore a gray t-shirt knotted at the waist and a simple maxi skirt, brown open-toed sandals. _This must be what she was wearing the day they met_, Nancy surmised silently.

The detective noticed her husband staring at her quizzically and she felt her cheeks flush. "I…I have no other choice, Frank. He gave me a choice...I'm sorry..."

"NANCY!" Frank bellowed, able to read that look on his wife's face all too well. "You cannot possibly sit here and tell me you're seriously thinking of going with him. Look what the hell he's done to you! He's—he's changed you, Nance, and if you stay with him, he'll kill you eventually. I—I'm sure of it, Nancy!"

"It's the only way to save you, Frank," she whispered, her voice wavering a little. She was actively avoiding staring at her reflection in the door's mirror. The woman in the mirror was a stranger to her. Not her.

Frank opened his mouth to speak, to tell her how foolish his wife was being, and doing this would not save his wife, because he would just kill Frank and take Nancy anyways, but he didn't get a chance as the sound of the bedroom door creaked open.

The Morning Killer entered, his green eyes blazing with a dangerous intensity. He was done with Frank Hardy interfering with his only chance left at salvation.

"Time's up, Helen," he snapped.

Nancy bit her lip, not wanting to do this, but she didn't see any other choice. "Tell me your name. Your real name. _Say it_," she urged, her voice above a whisper. "If I'm going to go with you, I need to know your name, don't I? I…" her voice trailed off, but she knew if she wanted to stay alive, she had to do this. "I'm your…wife…Sam. What's your real name?"

The Morning Killer halted, freezing in his tracks, not having anticipated such a question. He was looking at Nancy as though he could not quite believe what he was hearing. "Jax," he whispered. "Jax Price."

"And Helen was Helen Price?" A nod, confirming her suspicions. "If I go with you, Jax, will you let these two live? And—and Sonny!" she shouted, cursing herself for almost having forgotten Sonny Joon, wherever he was hiding in this hellhole. "That's my deal, Jax. Take it."

"You have my word, I swear it," he replied coldly, but it didn't reach his eyes. He fixed Nancy with a stare, but as he watched her, she could see it in his eyes, his expression softening. "My sweet, sweet, Helen, I—I'm so sorry. For—for everything I put you through," he apologized. He had eyes only for Nancy, staring at her as though he could not quite believe his eyes.

"She's not Helen, no matter how much she looks like her, she isn't your wife, Jax!" spoke up Jenna quietly, a new, fierce determination in your voice. "Helen—she doesn't want this for you. She—she told me so," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her admission caused the Morning Killer to whirl around and stare at the teenager, his eyes wide and slightly horrified, angry.

"What?" he snarled through clenched teeth. "What did you just say to me?" he demanded, fuming.

"Take my hand," Jenna urged, ignoring the dark looks both Nancy and Frank were shooting her way.

Nancy could see the doubt creeping its way onto Sam's face, as though he was beginning to question his voices. _Good_, she thought, but dared not say it. The young detective worked quickly to undo Frank's bindings, relishing the feeling of being in his arms again, thinking she would never see Frank again.

She could only fall silent and watch as the Morning Killer obliged, cutting her binds with some level of apprehension, hesitating before reaching out a slightly trembling hand, his fingers curling over Jenna's. Jenna closed her eyes, seemingly lost in concentration. Jax drew in a breath and held it.

"I just want to talk to her. We talked all the time, what we did, what we hadn't done, what we were going to do," he whispered, still sounding desperate. "I just want to talk to her, tell her how much I miss her. What are you, kid, and some kind of — of psychic?"

"Yes. Be quiet. I need to focus. She—she likes the red cushions, and the—the fairy lights, you've hung—you've hung them on the patio porch like you did in Boston. She likes those the best, says to keep them up. But she doesn't like the photograph." Jenna's voice was quiet and calm, despite the heavy tension.

"Photograph?" Jax asked, feeling his body go stiff. There was no way she could know this, unless... _Helen_.

"The one by your bed."

"But I love that picture!" he protested, feeling his tears well in his eyes.

"She says you look good."

"I was wearing the suit she got me. She was wearing the dress her mother got her for Easter, and she...Well maybe…oh my God, it's really Helen, isn't it?"

"Mmm." Jenna nodded. "Now…what do you want to say?"

"I…" Jax's voice trailed off as he swallowed the lump in his throat. "I don't know. I just wanted to tell her…what? That I—I'm okay. I made it. And it's great. The phone bills, ten times cheaper now! And I always know where my shoes are. I kept the old afghan she was so fond of, even though I couldn't stand looking at it. It still smells like her. I can smell her perfume on it. And I miss her. I supposed I didn't really know how much. But I do. I just do."

The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down his face. Jax felt the muscles of his chin tremble like a small child and he looked toward the window, as if the light of the coming dawn could soothe him. There is static in his head once more, the side effect of this constant fear, constant stress he had learned to live with ever since Helen's death. He heard his own sounds, like a distressed child, raw from the inside. It takes something out of him he didn't know he had left to give. That is the way it is when people are hard. It is like a theft of the spirit, an injury no other person can see.

Jenna's eyes still stayed closed despite Jax's tears and his distressed wailing. "She—she says she wants you to stop this madness. And to come home to her. Helen says—she—she says…it's not too late for you, but you have to stop. Right now. Don't kill us. Let us go. She said she won't let you destroy yourself anymore, like she—she told you a few days before she died. She wanted you to know how much she—"

But Jenna didn't get a chance to finish her sentence as the sound of something exploding rung in the air, startling all three of them. Jax rose, drawing his weapon with almost the preciseness of a gunslinger, like something you'd see in one of those old Western movies, and made to fire at the intruder, but his weapon was knocked out of his hands as a shot rang out, wounding his hand. With a startled cry of outrage, he dropped his weapon to the floor with a loud clang, and Nancy stifled a scream as he collapsed to the floor, bleeding to his death. The entry wound was dead center to his neck, perfection if you considered that sort of thing—professional hit, no doubt. Someone's trademark, perhaps. A clean shot...

* * *

Jax awoke in an empty room to the calling of his name. He lay on a white bed, the white walls around his punctuated with ancient looking doors. Above each was a label. He read them: perfect insight, oblivion, hell-fire and heaven. He tossed his head and cackled, so easy. He pulled at the door marked heaven but it wouldn't budge. He re-read the others and opened the door to "perfect insight." Instantly he understood all of the pain he had caused others, physical and emotional. He rattled the door to oblivion and found it also stuck. Jax nodded grimly, "Alright, God, you win." He pulled open the door to hell-fire and stepped in expecting heat and bubbling skin. Instead his insight was magnified to the point where he could actually feel the pain he had caused others, not all together, but one at a time. At the start he begged for it to end, but hours later he embraced it, welcoming the pain as his punishment. After what felt like an eternity the door to heaven opened, and his Helen stood there, no longer sick and gaunt, but vibrant and full of youth, just as he remembered her...

Helen smiled at him. "I knew you'd make it home," she whispered, holding out her hand for him to take. He took it. Redemption. Forgiveness. Was there a way he could make up for all of the horrible things Jax had done? Was there a way he could become someone better? Or would he always be Jax Price, the murderer? The angry man who refused to talk about his past and had no future? How could he be better? How could he help the people he loved so dearly?

Helen seemed to sense his hesitation and smiled. "By helping them one at a time. Come on," she whispered. "We have a lot of work to do."

To his amazement, he went with her. To him, this was his heaven, his true chance at redemption, with his wife at his side. He couldn't ask for anything more than that.

* * *

Nancy and Frank dared to glance up and saw to their relief, Sonny Joon standing behind that state trooper they'd met on the road earlier, Officer Jones, who was looking both relieved to see them all alive and terrified. Nancy's gaze drifted to the dying man on the floor. Some saw only the bullet hole that had killed a monster, but Nancy still saw the person living around it. She saw the pain in the one still living and the potential of those who lay cold in silent grayness.

She saw his perfect skin, the brilliant green eyes as they slowly lost their sheen as his life force ebbed out of him gradually, slowly, painfully. Nancy saw a human rather than a statistic, just another killer down for the count, and felt the grief of the only one who had probably ever loved this man and the fracturing echo of the universe. Jax Price, the Morning Killer, was dead.

Nancy turned her attention back to Frank and before she could say anything, her world went black. Nancy knew she would faint when her stomach would give out, it felt like her innards were being replaced by some kind of black hole. Then nausea crept from her abdomen to her head and the world went back, the sound of terrified screaming and ringing in her ears and something hot was engulfing her entire body, something wet trickling down from her forehead...

* * *

Nancy awoke with a jolt, at first terrified, a sheen of sweat on her brow, her hair splayed out behind her on either side of her face as her head rested against an unfamiliar pillow. She couldn't breathe, it felt as if someone was choking her. Something wedged up her nose revealed someone had inserted a nasal cannula into her passageways. Her heart was racing and all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and wait for someone to save her. But no one would, no one was there. A choked cry for help forced itself up her throat, and she felt a drop run down her cheek. It seemed as if this was the end of the road for her. Nancy lay in the unfamiliar bed quietly, keeping her eyes closed, matching her breaths to the strange beeping sounds of foreign machines nearby, the only indications of her heartbeat, her existence. Her legs were numb, and her head felt bruised and battered. Curiosity slowly pried open her eyes to meet a dismal view of a magnolia colored hospital room, the door a deep navy blue, Frank in a chair at her bedside. She knew immediately the door was locked, this was to keep her in here, not them out. She slid her eyes sideways, IV's covered both the tops of her hands. Beyond her bed at the foot of the bed was her chart and vitals.

Nancy Drew

Status: Unstable

Admittance: 3:27 am

Cause of admittance: car crash, danger to self, others

Diagnosis: Post Traumatic Stress

Duration: Unknown. Recommend keeping patient overnight for observation until condition improves.

Nancy blearily sat up straighter, propped up against a couple of stiff hospital pillows, the woolen blanket draped over her had been heated and it felt nice, but this was an unfamiliar place. Glancing sideways at the night table next to the hospital's bed, she could see a few Get Well cards from Bess and George, a small stuffed bulldog plush that looked eerily like her dog Togo, and a vase of wild purple flowers that looked suspiciously like lilacs and lavenders. For a second, she thought she was back in the house, and was living through some sick elaborate fantasy of Jax's, reliving the day Helen Price had passed away. "Where am I? What…what happened? Frank? Is that really you?" she croaked, lifting a weak hand to study it and feeling her tears stinging and blurring her vision as they threatened to spill over. Her left hand was trembling, but thank Christ; her wedding band was still there. She was worried Jax Price had done something to it while she had been knocked out. Nancy caught sight of her reflection in a mirror and gaped. Her hair was still a rich dark chocolate brown, not its original color, but still beautiful just the same. "Where are we, Frank?" Nancy whispered. "Where am I?"

"Hey," he said quietly. "It's so good to see you, baby. How are you feeling? Does your head still hurt? You're in the hospital. We were in a car accident, but you're okay. You—you hit your head pretty hard, so they want to keep you overnight for a couple of days, make sure you don't have a concussion," he said, seeming genuinely concerned for his wife.

"We—we were in a house," she whispered.

"We got out. Sonny and the cop saved us both. So did Jenna. She—she saved us. If weren't for Jenna doing what she did for Jax, we'd all be dead. Jax Price is dead."

"How?" she demanded, wincing at the throbbing pain in her head and black spots in her vision.

"Shot by me after the prick crashed your car on purpose, that's how. The man was a type A violent creep, he'd been stalking you two for a _long_ time. Particularly you, Miss Drew. The man's name was Jaxon Price, Jax for short. We'd been after him for a long time, but he was always one-step ahead of law enforcement, slippery little bastard. It became personal when he killed my partner. I vowed to hunt the bastard down and gut him like the pig that he is," spoke up a new voice from the doorway, none other than the lieutenant that had pulled them over, Officer Seth Jones himself. He was looking worse for wear, dirtied and his uniform covered in ashes and smelled of pine and smoke, like a bonfire. "You two are lucky to be alive. Guess it's a good thing I got to you when I did."

"Car crash?" whispered Nancy, not remembering much of their accident. "But—but the house, Frank! A—and Prudence Rutherford, a—and Tino! Where's Sonny?" she demanded, feeling the beginnings of hysteria and a panic attack begin to set it. She reached for Frank's hand, weak though she was; she was able to hold his hand, squeezing it as tight as she could.

"Here, Nancy," spoke up Sonny quietly from the doorway, looking shaken up and still terrified, but otherwise relatively unharmed. "We're lucky."

"Tino and Prudence?" she croaked, already knowing the answer and not wanting to believe it. She could see it in her husband's eyes, they didn't make it.

"Your car hit the beam and fishtailed into the other car. Tino and Prudence were in the Accord, they had left their lights on. We ID'd them both. Guy was a detective in Chicago, the woman the wife of a retired banker. Sad thing is, those two were still probably alive when the gas tank ignited. Damn shame if you ask me. What a nightmare, it's going to take us ages to clean up Price's mess," mumbled Officer Jones darkly under his breath.

"Can you guys give us a minute alone?" he called out, his gaze never leaving his wife. Sonny and the cop nodded, talking quietly amongst themselves as they exited, closing the hospital room's door behind them as they left. We crashed our car, Nance," explained Frank, doing his best to remain calm, but seeing his wife's distressed state was agitating him greatly. He did not like to see Nancy like this. "The moment the car hit the trees, I—I thought we were both dead. Then I kept waking and waking. I liked to be unconscious rather than awake. Because when I was awake, I could taste the blood pooling in my mouth. I could feel it grazing my teeth and soaking my tongue. I could feel the ache and cracks in my bones. My agony was the only thing keeping me alive. It was the only thing I could feel anymore. Apparently, that's when we both died, but the paramedics revived us."

The dread crept over Nancy like an icy chill, numbing her brain. In this frozen state, her mind offered her only one thought. "We…we died? But—but _how_? N—Ned, a—and Jax Price, that—that wasn't real? No, it can't be, Sonny's here, and—and the cop said it himself, Jax Price is dead! How do you explain this?" she shouted, gesturing to a lock of her dark hair.

"Darkness," said Frank, looking as though a light had ignited in his eyes. "Darkness in our hearts. The—the house, I—I think it showed us our worst fears. The—the darkness in our hearts. But Jenna, she…saved us. She—she got out too. Cops picked her up about a mile down the road, and they're sending her home to her parents in New York City. She's safe, Nance."

"Wait a second, wait a second, just…hold up. So you're telling me that house was just a—a purgatory?" Nancy shouted, not wanting to believe it.

"Maybe," said Frank soothingly, daring to sit on the edge of his wife's hospital bed and take her into his arms, stroking her hair. "You ask me, I think it was all real, though. The house, Jax, Alice and Todd, all of it. Whether it was some...out of body experience or not, I don't care anymore. We got out, Nance. We saved ourselves. We did it. That's all that matters. We're alive, and at the end of the day, that's all I care about, that you're with me, love."

_Could all of that have just been a dream? An evening spent in Hell?_ The detective couldn't discern what was truth from fiction, and maybe they would never know if what they experienced was real or not. She would never know for sure. Nancy bit her tongue, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to leave her eyes. And that's when she couldn't hold them back. First, one small crystal bead escaped from her right eye. She could feel the warmth, sliding down her cheek, and rolling off her chin as Frank held her, whispering soothing remarks in her ear. Until her eyes flooded with tears, coming like a rainfall. Sniffing every ten seconds, they fell, and she let them. She knew better than to fight it. "Hey, Frank?" she whispered, when the worst of her mini panic attack had subsided.

"What is it, honey?" he asked quietly, reaching over to place a gentle kiss on her forehead, still stroking her hair, playing with a lock of dark hair absentmindedly. "You know, hate this color all you want, Nance, but I love it on you. It looks great."

She smiled, her tears coming again, but this time, they were tears of relief and happiness that they'd made it out alive. "Let's go to Mohonk after they release me and not come back. Let's take an extended vacation. After this, we could really use a break."

Frank's laughter was light at hearing his wife make a joke. He lowered his face to hers, being careful to be mindful of the IV's in her hand and the nasal cannula and their lips met. His kiss was gentle but passionate. As they parted, Nancy saw his eyes sparkle and lips curve up into a little half-smile and she could not help but smile back. Frank and Joe's mom had always called Frank Hardy a "diamond in the rough," and Nancy knew what she meant. To her, though, Frank was simply a diamond. The rest of the world could be as rough as it desired, but it never affected her husband. He shone with inner beauty all the same.

Nancy let out a tiny sigh of contentment. Though she was physically and emotionally exhausted, and she quickly fell asleep in Frank's arms, she knew that as long as she was with Frank, safe in his arms where she belonged, she was home. She guessed that was part of why she fell in love with him, that sparkle in his eyes that made her feel vibrant and alive. Nothing and nobody could ever take that away from him. He was hers, and she his.

_Forever, _she thought happily as she lost herself to a peaceful, dreamless sleep, nestled in her husband's arms. Home with him. Where she belonged.


End file.
